[Serum immunoglobulins in children with diabetes mellitus]

The authors present the results of studying immunoglobulins of classes A, M, and G in 40 children with diabetes mellitus; immunoglobulin level was analyzed depending on a number of clinical diabetes mellitus indices and insulin antibody titres. The III type of dysgammaglobulinemia was found to be characteristic of patients with microangiopathies; changes in the immunoglobulin content were directly opposite to the changes revealed in patients with microangiopathies. With increasing the duration of diabetes there was an aggravation of dysgammaglobulinemia characteristic of these two groups of patients. The level of immunoglobulins under study was greater in the patients with lipoatrophies and in those without any hereditary predisposition to diabetes than in patients without lipoatrophies and without any hereditary predisposition to diabetes, respectively. A regular reduction of all the immunoglobulins level was observed only in patients with glucosuria of not less than 100 g/24 hours. Immunoglobulin content showed no significant association with the patients' sex, age, the insulin antibody titre, and the age at which diabetes developed, or with hyper cholesterolemia and enlargement of the liver.