It's no secret that type 1 diabetes is on the rise in children. If current trends continue, new cases in kids younger than 5 could double by 2020.
Below are five hypotheses that explain why. All of them presume that the person has some genetic tendency towards developing type 1 diabetes
2. Too little sun. The "sunshine hypothesis" comes from data showing that countries situated closer to the equator have lower rates of type 1 diabetes.
3. Too clean. The "hygiene hypothesis" is the notion that cleanliness — lack of exposure to certain germs and parasites — may increase susceptibility to diseases like diabetes.
4. Too much cow's milk. The "cow's milk hypothesis" states that exposing babies to infant formula containing cow's milk in the first six months of life damages their immune systems, and can trigger autoimmune diseases such as type 1 diabetes.
5. Too much pollution. The "POP hypothesis" alleges that being exposed to pollutants increases diabetes risk.
http://health.usnews.com/health-news/family-health/diabetes/articles/2010/04/26/5-reasons-that-may-explain-why-type-1-diabetes-is-on-the-rise.html
5 is the only possibility for Riley. Not that I think its that either but I have no idea what the pollution was like where we lived in SO cal or here for that matter.
My son was just diagnosed last year at age 5. None of those are possibilities for him. I still can't shake the thought that it's somehow linked to vaccines....
I was reading about this topic last night during one of my 3 AM online research binges (no school for me until August 23, so I'm doing what I can :)). I learned that Australia in particular has had a dramatic increase in people diagnosed with type 1 diabetes the last 10 or so years.
Jaimie, you might like the article below.
Dr. Classen presented data at the International Public Conference on Vaccination proving vaccines are the largest cause of insulin dependent diabetes in children. His data indicated that vaccines cause approximately 80% of cases in children who have received multiple vaccines starting at two months of age. Here is the link to Dr. Classens findings:
Putting them to the test....I have three young diabetic boys who:
1. 2 were small for their age when diagnosed, 1 was very tall for his age.
2. We live in California, lots of sun!
3. My first son I kept away from dirt, my other three I let play freely and were always little messes coming in from outside. My first is the only of my three boys who isn't diabetic. (knock on wood!)
4. My boys drank from me, or soy milk.
5. We live near the coast...not much pollution here, only fog.
But genically, it does run in the family. I have a cousin, a neice, a brother and now my three boys who have type 1 diabetes. I've also heard, the farther you get from the equator, the more prevalent diabetes is.
Riley always got her vaccinations way late. I dont think one can judge weather vaccinations are a cause or not most kids get multiple vaccinations starting at two months. Then again I dont think they cause autism either and the original study done on it was a crock of bull. It wasnt on weather vaccinations caused autism it was something else and the guy noticed most of the kids who were autistic also had vaccinations. Well hello most kids do get vaccinated. Autism is a developmental disorder it just so happens at the age certain vaccinations are given. It also happens to kids who dont get vaccinations and so on. SO I feel the same way towards it with Diabetes as I do autism sometimes it just happens.
I think we would disprove the top 4...but I would like to respectfully ask if any of us can say that #5 is not the case. We live outside of the twin cities - and there is very little air pollution. I do think that compared to two or three generations ago there is just a lot more exposure to pollutants, in our water, in our food, in products we use daily etc. I had a severe reaction one time that the doctors could not figure out -- they asked me to quit eating anything that was processed, raised with pesticides, packaged in plastics etc...not to have exposure to anything but natural fibers ( no carpets, no clothing with dyes etc) Funny thing was I could NOT go to the hospital because the chemicals they use to clean were potentially dangerous. I think too many times we consider pollution to be what we can see.....just a thought.
I think any of these factors might increase the risk, but that none are the sole or even the primary cause. I still believe that HLA-DR genetics and the interaction of viruses with it are the primary cause of most cases of type 1 diabetes.
Consider that type 1 diabetes has been around for ages, prior to us growing larger with increased food (I'm pretty small and was upon diagnosis), prior to the increase of vaccines (it wasn't until the 1990s when the number of vaccines required really increased dramatically - I had just five, not the dozens required of kids nowadays), regardless of how much sun some of us get (I notice several of you have mentioned that you or the one close to you who got type 1 diabetes got as much sun as most other people), regardless of cleanliness (in recent years, I know that superbug bacteria have developed in response to our over-sanitization, but we had type 1 diabetes years before this phenomenon), regardless of milk (I was strictly breast-fed in my first six month per my mom's account), and no matter where we live (I grew up in a city of about 40,000, certainly no worse than L.A. and many other big cities pollution-wise).
But I do know that my case of type 1 diabetes directly followed an Epstein-Barr mononucleosis infection, which is notoriously correlated with autoimmune reactions. I'm thinking many of the small, unvaccinated, sun-soaked, unclean, breast-fed, unpolluted farmer types who developed diabetes 100 years ago probably developed it following similar circumstances. We can't escape most viruses and haven't been able to for all of recorded history, and goodness knows type 1 diabetes didn't suddenly just start happening in the last few decades (insulin came about in the '20s, after all).
Just some food for thought.