@ The Barbara Davis Center for Childhood Diabetes/UCHSC

Overview of TEDDY Study

The TEDDY study - T he E nvironmental D eterminants of D iabetes in the Y oung - is looking for the causes of type 1 diabetes mellitus (T1DM).  Six groups of research doctors from across the world are working together in this study.  All of the centers are following children with higher risk genes.  All of the centers are going to get the same information about the lives of the children in the study. TEDDY centers are located in Denver, Seattle, Florida/Georgia, Sweden, Finland, and Germany.

What is TEDDY Studying?

TEDDY is studying several things:

•  Genetic or inherited factors

•  Environmental factors including childhood illness, diet, medications, vitamins, allergies, vaccinations, social and psychological issues

•  Any connections or interactions between genetic factors and environmental factors

Previous studies of type 1 diabetes have shown that some of these factors, either by themselves or acting together, are important in the development of type 1 diabetes. However, because there is often a long time period between the time when a child was exposed to a certain illness, dietary factor, or other environmental event, and the time diabetes occurs, it is difficult to tell what things are truly responsible for developing diabetes.

TEDDY allows for a better, larger, and more coordinated approach to studying these genetic and environmental issues. TEDDY will begin collecting environmental information from children just shortly after birth. Over a period of 15 years, information about environmental events will be collected as the events happen in each child's life. Finding out more about these events and how they act together, will lead to a better understanding of how type 1 diabetes develops and how to try to prevent, slow down, or reverse the disease. Because TEDDY procedures are done the same way at six different international sites, we will have a very large amount of data to study.

TEDDY plans to study about 1,200 children who have a parent or sibling with type 1 diabetes, and 6,000 children who have no family history of the disease. About 1,500 of these children will come from TEDDY Colorado. To find these children, we will screen 40,000 Colorado newborns over a five year period. Click here to learn more about screening. Only newborns with certain genes, or DNA, are eligible to be followed over time by TEDDY Colorado. Click here to learn more about followup. Click here to watch a video about TEDDY.