Pancreatic autoantibodies are characteristic of type 1 diabetes. Highly sensitive laboratory measurements capture ∼98% of individuals with autoantibodies at diagnosis (10). Unfortunately, most commercial laboratories do not have reliably sensitive or specific assays that measure all five autoantibodies: GADA, islet cell antibodies (ICA), insulin autoantibodies (IAA), protein tyrosine phosphatase antibodies (ICA512 or IA2A), and zinc transporter protein (ZnT8). Thus, it may be inappropriate to report a patient as autoantibody negative. Another cause of “false-negative” autoantibodies is testing far out from diagnosis as antibody titers diminish over time (Fig. 1). It appears that there is an increased incidence of type 1 diabetes in ethnic populations where autoantibody markers may be of variable utility, such as in Asians where autoantibodies are often negative