A new study has revealed that a common family of viruses (enteroviruses) in the pancreas may play an important role in triggering the development of diabetes, particularly in kids.

The study has been conducted by researchers from the Peninsula Medical School in the South West of England, the University of Brighton and the Department of Pathology at Glasgow Royal Infirmary.

Type 1 diabetes usually starts in young people and results from the destruction of the insulin-producing beta cells in the pancreas.

It has long been speculated that viruses might play a role in causing type 1 diabetes by infecting the beta cells of the pancreas.

For the study, the researchers looked at the collection of pancreases from 72 young people who died less than a year after the diagnosis of type 1 diabetes.

The study revealed that more than 60 per cent of the organs contained evidence of enteroviral infection of the beta cells.

By contrast, infected beta cells were hardly ever seen in tissue samples from 50 children without the condition.