Increased gastrointestinal permeability is an early lesion in the spontaneously diabetic BB rat

The BE rat spontaneously develops autoimmune diabetes. Feeding these animal s a hydrolyzed casein diet significantly reduces the incidence of this dise ase, suggesting that a dietary antigen is involved in the pathogenesis of t his disease. In other syndromes associated with luminal antigens, including celiac and Crohn's disease, increased intestinal permeability has been sug gested to play an etiological role. Therefore, the objective of this study was to evaluate whether increased permeability was also present in BE rats before disease development. By measuring gastrointestinal permeability, in animals on a regular or hydrolyzed casein diet, we were able to demonstrate that increased gastric and small intestinal permeability appeared before t he development of both insulitis and clinical diabetes. Although hydrolysis of dietary protein significantly reduced the incidence of diabetes, it did not alter the small intestinal permeability abnormality, suggesting that t his is an early event. Increased permeability appears to have an early role in the genesis of several immunological diseases and may represent a commo n event in these diseases.