Circulating glucagon antibodies in children who have insulin-dependent diabetes mellitus. Clinical significance and characterization.

A substance present in the sera of diabetic children that interferes with the radioimmunoassay for glucagon was found in six of 66 children who were participating in an inpatient study of diabetic control. Detailed studies documented unequivocally that this glucagon-binding substance is a specific antibody to glucagon and is located in the immunoglobulins. In a survey of diabetic children in the outpatient diabetes clinic and in a diabetes summer camp, antibodies to glucagon were found in about 12% of those evaluated. However, no children who had had diabetes for less than three years were found to have antibodies, and there appeared to be an increase with increasing duration of disease of up to greater than 20% at eight years' duration. The presence of glucagon antibodies may be of pathologic significance in that the patients have a greater tendency to develop hypoglycemia than do diabetic children without glucagon antibodies.