A child plays, laughs, feels perfectly healthy. And yet a disease can already begin in the body. In type 1 diabetes, the disease often develops years before the first symptoms appear. A study from Dresden aims to make this visible.
Fr1da is the name of the program that offers families the opportunity to have their children between the ages of two and ten tested for early signs of type 1 diabetes. It is supported in Saxony by the Center for Regenerative Therapies Dresden (CRTD) at the Technical University of Dresden and the University Hospital Carl Gustav Carus Dresden. The study will grow from May 2026. Five more federal states will be added, including Brandenburg, Thuringia and Saxony-Anhalt. This means that Fr1da will be available in a total of twelve federal states.
What does this mean for the families affected?
The difference is significant. Children in whom Fr1da detects an early stage are examined further in specialized children's clinics. There, doctors determine the stage of the disease and draw up an individual prevention plan. The aim is to avoid serious complications as far as possible. This includes diabetic ketoacidosis in particular. This is a life-threatening metabolic imbalance that occurs when the body suddenly lacks insulin. In Germany, it occurs in more than 20 percent of newly diagnosed children. In children who were detected by Fr1da, the figure was only 2.5 percent.
"With Fr1da, we don't just see type 1 diabetes when children become acutely ill, but much earlier," says Anette-Gabriele Ziegler, Scientific Director of the study and Director of the Institute for Diabetes Research at Helmholtz Munich. This creates time for education, prevention and, if necessary, medical intervention.
Early detection is becoming increasingly important
Type 1 diabetes is not a rare disease, affecting around one child in every 250. Experts believe that many cases are only detected once severe symptoms have already appeared. Programs such as Fr1da are intended to change this and help to detect the disease earlier and treat it better in the long term. For Dresden, the expansion of the study also means new infrastructure. A second central laboratory is being built to cope with the increasing number of tests. Families and practices will be supported by a coordination center in Dresden.
With the expansion to twelve federal states, the study now reaches a large part of the population. In the long term, it could serve as a model for integrating early detection more closely into standard care.
