Evidence map›Paper›PMID 40060384›Full record

ArticleFrontiers in endocrinology2025

Infections and antibiotic use in early childhood have limited importance in developing manifest type 1 diabetes - The ABIS cohort study.

Malin Bélteky, Jeanette Wahlberg, Johnny Ludvigsson

Abstract read
In one paragraph

Article in Frontiers in endocrinology, 2025. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 2 papers, 2 of them syntheses that pooled it.

0numbers the graph read from it
0cells of the map it votes in
2citing papers in PubMed, 2 pooled it
–field-weighted citation impact
1 · What the graph read from it

What it found

Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.

The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.

2 · The registry

The trial behind it

Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.

Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.

3 · Its place in the literature

Who cites it

2 citing papers in PubMed, 2 syntheses or guidelines pooled it.

  1. Pooled it
  2. Pooled it
4 · The record

Corrections and comments

PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.

5 · Who and what money

Authors and funding

3 authors.

Malin Bélteky *Crown Princess Victoria's Children´s Hospital, Region Östergötland and Department of Biomedical and Clinical Sciences, Linköping University, Linköping, Sweden.
Jeanette Wahlberg *Department of Acute Internal Medicine and Geriatrics in Linköping, Department of Health, Medicine and Caring Sciences, Linköping University, Linköping, Sweden.
Johnny Ludvigsson *Crown Princess Victoria's Children´s Hospital, Region Östergötland and Department of Biomedical and Clinical Sciences, Linköping University, Linköping, Sweden.

Funding

No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.

6 · The paper itself

Abstract

Aims: To investigate the effect of early childhood infections and antibiotic use on the risk of type 1 diabetes in a general population cohort. Research Design and Methods: The All Babies In Southeast Sweden (ABIS) cohort followed 16 428 children from birth. Questionnaires collected at 1 year (n=11 093), 3 years (n=8 890) and 5 years of age (n=7 445) included data on infections and antibiotic use and were validated against national registers. After a mean follow-up of 25 years, 168 individuals have been diagnosed with type 1 diabetes (1.0% of the original cohort, aged 1-24.5 years). Results: There were few significant differences in type or frequency of early childhood infections or antibiotic use between cases with type 1 diabetes and the reference group (remaining individuals who did not develop type 1 diabetes) after adjusting for sex, heredity and socioeconomic status. A small number of type 1 diabetes children (4.8% compared to 0.8% of the reference group) reported six or more episodes of gastroenteritis in the 1-3-year age group, resulting in an adjusted odds ratio (aOR) of 8.21; 95% CI 2.70-25.01, p<0.001. Cases of type 1 diabetes with an increased genetic risk (n=91) reported fewer episodes of the common cold between 1 and 3 years of age compared to the reference group (aOR 0.27; 0.13-0.58, p<0.001). Individuals with type 1 diabetes without risk-associated HLA alleles (n=14) reported a higher frequency of pneumonia in the 1-3- and 3-5-year age group (aOR 26.08; 6.29-108.17, p<0.001 and aOR 35.63; 4.10-309.96, p=0.001 respectively), and had more viral and total infections registered in the National Patient Register from 0-5 years (aOR 5.72; 1.59-20.57, p=0.008 and aOR 18.71; 1.95-179.55, p=0.01). Conclusions: Childhood infections could increase the risk of developing type 1 diabetes in a small group of individuals without risk-associated HLA alleles, but this was not seen in the majority with HLA-risk. More research is required for this overlooked population, including screening and prevention trials. The association to frequent gastrointestinal infections in the first years of life needs to be reproduced in other studies to be confirmed.

Indexed as

Anti-Bacterial AgentsDiabetes Mellitus, Type 1InfectionsChildChild, PreschoolCohort StudiesFemaleFollow-Up StudiesHumansInfantMaleRisk FactorsSwedenYoung AdultAnti-Bacterial Agentschildhood environmental factorsgastroenteritisinfectionssex differencestype 1 diabetes

Identifiers

PMID40060384
PMCPMC11885132

What OpenQuestion holds

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Registered trials

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Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.