IL1B and diabetes mellitus: The occurrence of an IL-1β-driven IL-1β overexpression in the diabetic retina is supported by the progressive, disease duration-dependent increase of IL-1β mRNA – from 1.6 fold at 2.5 months and 2.5 fold at 4.5 months in this study, to 10 folds at 6 months of diabetes in our previous study [10]– a temporal pattern of IL-1β upregulation consistent with a positive feed-back effect of IL-1β itself.