Antibodies to Bovine Serum Albumin in Japanese IDDM Children; No Association with GAD Antibodies and HLA Risk Genotypes

The implications of Bovine serum albumin (BSA) in cow's milk proteins in the pathogenesis of insulin-dependent diabetes mellitus (IDDM) have been suggested, but is controversial even in Caucasians, and have been addressed in limited studies in other ethnic groups. We studied the prevalence of antibodies to BSA (BSAAb) in sera from Japanese children with IDDM, and compared it to those in children with other diseases including non insulin-dependent diabetes mellitus (NIDDM), autoimmune thyroid disease (AITD) and congenital hypothyroidism (cretinism) by using enzymelinked immunosorbent assay (ELISA). Significant levels of BSAAb were detected in sera from non-diabetic normal children, and higher levels in younger (1-3 years of age) than in older children (4-9 years of age). Only 2 of 20 (10%) recent-onset IDDM patients of age ≧4 years were assessed to have high titers of BSAAb compared to normal controls, and none of 8 sera from those of age