Crowd of type 1 kids in my town

General
21

Terry,

You have a valid reason to believe that cow's milk is a possible cause for type one diabetes. However, this does not explain for the unusually high number of type 1's in your town. If cow's milk is a cause of type 1, then it would be reflected in the general population of type 1's. This is unless of course, for some reason your town drinks a much higher than usual amount of cow's milk, or you town exclusively drinks one farm's milk and no other town does. In other words, for your town to have a higher than normal percentage of type 1's would signal one of two things. Either one, bad luck. In other words, there is no explanation. The other possibility is that something is affecting your town and your town alone. This would most likely be an environmental factor such as a factory dumping chemicals into your drinking water or air. Cow's milk is simply too broad to explain a higher than normal percentage of type 1's in your town. 

22

Somehow the subject drifted off the original. I wasn't claiming that cow's milk is the reason for the diabetes in my town. I have no idea why. I just think it is interesting and it makes me curious. 

There are all sorts of weird coincidences like this near me. For example two little girls died of the same rare brain cancer within a few houses of each other within a a year. It turns out that one probably had it before she moved to the area. There are also a lot of kids with leukemia. Studies have been done and the state claims there is no leukemia problem here but they didn't count half the kids that have it. The investigator said at a town meeting that if indeed that many more kids had it he didn't know about he would be concerned. Some people didn't participate in the study even though when their kid had a serious illnesses. They just want to forget about it. People around me use way too many chemicals in their yards and think nothing of spraying pesticides all over their yards for no good reason. Their kids may be sick but at least their lawns are green. 

FInland by the way has the highest incidence of type 1 in the world. It also is a major consumer and producer of cow's milk products. Thus the hypothesis. There is also a hypothesis that a messed up circadian rhythm of the pancreas might be a cause. FInland has long days in summer and long nights in winter. But so do other northern countries and they don't have as many type 1's as Finland.

23

Terry,

I don't know if you have already, but if you are interested in stuff like this, check out the book A Civil Action. It came out sometime in the last decade and I believe it was even made into a movie. Regardless, the book is very good, and addresses the issue of a cluster in a town in Massachusetts. 

24

Sorry to go back on a tangent, but is the research on cow's milk at any age or before 1 yr of age? I had also read/heard about the link to formula fed (which most formula is processed cows milk) and so my son was exclusively on breastmilk until 1 yr of age. He also continued to nurse some until 16 mos old.

I am much more apt to believe the Vit D definciency as being highly correlated to Type 1. Vit D is increasingly being noted as an important immune system regulator - in that it helps prevent the immune system from going crazy and attacking the body instead of just attacking infectious agents. That helps explain the higher correlation to northern climates. It would be interesting to know if in Finland they put Vit D in cows milk. If not, then maybe that difference could explain the Finish correlations to cows milk that are not reproduced in other countries (or at least in the US.) In the US, most whole milk is fortified with Vit D and that is what kind of milk most kids are given to drink from age 1-2 yrs. 

Terry - if you have other kids, you might want to get their Vit D levels tested. It is a simple blood test. Vit D supplements are readily available. We have no problem giving to our kids as you can find them in gummy form. We give 1000 IU every day. (THis is well over the "new" US recommended amount for kids, but is still a safe amount. Our endo is all for this.) 

25

[quote user="JDVsMom"]

Sorry to go back on a tangent, but is the research on cow's milk at any age or before 1 yr of age? I had also read/heard about the link to formula fed (which most formula is processed cows milk) and so my son was exclusively on breastmilk until 1 yr of age. He also continued to nurse some until 16 mos old.

I am much more apt to believe the Vit D definciency as being highly correlated to Type 1. Vit D is increasingly being noted as an important immune system regulator - in that it helps prevent the immune system from going crazy and attacking the body instead of just attacking infectious agents. That helps explain the higher correlation to northern climates. It would be interesting to know if in Finland they put Vit D in cows milk. If not, then maybe that difference could explain the Finish correlations to cows milk that are not reproduced in other countries (or at least in the US.) In the US, most whole milk is fortified with Vit D and that is what kind of milk most kids are given to drink from age 1-2 yrs. 

Terry - if you have other kids, you might want to get their Vit D levels tested. It is a simple blood test. Vit D supplements are readily available. We have no problem giving to our kids as you can find them in gummy form. We give 1000 IU every day. (THis is well over the "new" US recommended amount for kids, but is still a safe amount. Our endo is all for this.) 

[/quote]

 

I agree with JDVsMom that the evidence related to vitamin D is a little more convincing.  And if it's wrong, there's no harm.  As a preventative measure we give my non-diabetic son 1000mg of Vit D.  Walgreens and Whole Foods has a yummy lemon flavored one that our whole family takes and we also make sure to get lots of outside time. 

I'm not tryint to be a turkey (really I'm not!) but I've read the milk studies and none of them are large or contain people who aren't already prone to type 1.  It's like the classic example you learn in statistics class that as ice cream sales increase, so does the rate of rape; seems like there's a connection, but it's just coincidental because both ice cream sales and rape rates increase in the summer. 

As for chemicals causing cancer and other health problems, interestingly enough even though we use all sorts of chemicals, peoples life expectancy is longer and cancer rates have FALLEN for all types of cancer except breast and prostate, which experts say is because early detection diagnoses more cases and people are living long enough to develop these forms of cancer.  Also, the Centers for Disease control don't show any higher rates of cancer at 3 Mile Island or other places that are supposed to be "toxic."  The strongest evidence about chemicals is that the families of farmers who use pesticides and other crop chemicals have no higher cancer rates than any other group of people.   So I don't think chemicals should be our biggest worry... being obese, smoking, driving a car, and of course bad blood sugars for us diabetics, are the real threats. 

We all want a cure for diabetes and want to prevent future generations from getting type 1 and type 2.  If you want to take your child off milk, then that's okay.  They can get calcium and fat from a lot of different sources.  But a lot of medical research is inane and shouldn't be taken too seriously without strong statistics to back it up. 

26

The problem with the vitamin D deficiency hypothesis is that the more milk kids drink the more likely they are to get type 1. 

 

27

What a sad excuse for a nurse.  She should be motivated to help kids with type 1!