A 10-year study in Germany reports that extending screening for Type 1 diabetes successfully identified more children without a family history of the disease. About 90 percent of people who develop type 1 diabetes do not have family members with diabetes.

It’s time to consider screening all children for early signs of type 1 diabetes, a new study suggests.

In the United States, only individuals who have family members with the disease or a known genetic risk are routinely screened for the early stages of type 1 diabetes. But a 10-year study in Germany reports that extending the screening successfully identified more children without a family history of the disease, researchers report May 21 in the *Journal of the American Medical Association*. About 90 percent of people who develop type 1 diabetes do not have family members with the disease.

The team screened more than 220,000 children and found that 590 were in the early stages of the disease. Of the 260 children who went on to develop type 1 diabetes in the follow-up period, 212, or 81 percent, had been tagged by screening. Had it been restricted to those with a family history, only 101 of the 590 in the early stages would have been identified and only 34 of the 212 who progressed to type 1 diabetes.

[**Read more here**](https://www.sciencenews.org/article/type-1-diabetes-screening-children?utm_source=Reddit&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=rmh) **and the** [**research article here.** ](https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/fullarticle/2849402)