Viral Infection May Trigger Childhood Diabetes in Utero

The incidence of type 1 childhood diabetes has been increasing rapidly
worldwide. If blood sugar levels aren't well-controlled, juvenile
diabetes can affect nearly every organ of a child's body. And while
long-term complications of the disease develop gradually, they may
become disabling and even life-threatening. The exact cause of juvenile
diabetes has eluded scientists, but a new study from Tel Aviv University suggests a likely trigger before birth.

In a recent paper published in Diabetic Medicine, Prof. Zvi Laron, Professor Emeritus of Pediatric Endocrinology at TAU's Sackler Faculty of Medicine,
Director of the Endocrinology and Diabetes Research Unit at Schneider
Children's Medical Center of Israel, and Head of the WHO Collaborating
Center for the Study of Diabetes in Youth, puts forth evidence that the
autoimmune disease is initiated in utero. According to the
research, conducted in collaboration with an international team of
researchers, women who contract a viral infection during pregnancy
transmit viruses to their genetically susceptible fetuses, sparking the
development of type 1 diabetes.

Antibodies to islet cell autoantigens, rotaviruses and/or enteroviruses in cord blood and healthy mothers in relation to the 2010–2011 winter viral seasons in Israel: a pilot study

How rotavirus infection accelerates autoimmune diabetes in a mouse model -- ScienceDaily

NOD (for non-obese diabetic) mice are prone to develop diabetes, and
infection with rotavirus accelerates onset of the disease. Barbara
Coulson and colleagues, from The University of Melbourne, Australia,
tested the hypothesis that the virus does this by inducing bystander
activation .

Bystander activation assumes that a foreign intruder
(in this case rotavirus) provokes a strong but non-specific activation
of the immune system, and that this heightened state of activation
"spills over" to a subset of specific immune cells that can recognize
and attack not the viral intruder but some of the body's own cells, in
this case the insulin-producing islet cells in the pancreas.

Rotavirus vaccination may also protect children against seizures

 "A new study suggests an additional—and somewhat surprising—potential benefit of vaccinating children against rotavirus, a common cause of diarrhea and vomiting. Besides protecting kids from intestinal illness caused by rotavirus, immunization may also reduce the risk of related seizures, according to findings published in Clinical Infectious Diseases and available online."