Background: The immune system matures mainly during the postnatal period through breastfeeding, and is partly modified by nutritive factors. The manner by which early feeding practices influence the development of type 1 diabetes mellitus (TID) is not clear. Also the use of genetics in determining the prognostic evaluation of the disease has not be studied intensely. Aim: To study the relationship between the early infant feeding patterns and the susceptibility to TID through the HLA DRB1 and DQ allelic polymorphism and identify the genes of high predictive value in the prognostic model. Methods: The study included 24 diabetic children with TID matched with 21 controls. All the children were exposed to detailed history of the disease process and anthropometry for weight, height and body mass index. Blood samples were collected from all 45 cases for measuring HLA-DRB1and HLA- DQB1allelic polymorphism for the susceptible genes of HLA-RB1 0301, 0302, 0401 and 0402 and HLA- DQB1*02 and for the protective genes HLA-RB1 07,*13 by polymerase chain reaction sequence specific primer (PCR-SSP) done by genomic DNA extraction using Genomic DNA purification kits. Results: Allelic polymorphism for the susceptible genes of HLA-RB1 were shown to be higher in the diabetic group compared to the control group especially for the 0302 and 0401 alleles at P0.05. HLADRB1*07 and HLADRB1*13 were significantly higher in the breastfed healthy but not in the diseased or the formula fed groups (p |
