Tuesday, February 8, 2011

Type 1 Diabetes and Environmental Factors--Connection?

We all know that experts believe that there may be a link between Type 1 Diabetes, and environmental factors.

When Lenny was diagnosed, the doctors told us that, while the cause of Type 1 Diabetes is still unknown, it is believed that things in the environment could be a trigger. Things like the common cold.

Tonight I read a blog post on Diabetes1 Blogs: Anna's Blog regarding an article she came across about an association with Type 1 Diabetes, the common cold, and "the second leading cause of viral colds in children", Enteroviruses.

A "meta-analysis of 26 studies", has appearently found that children with Type 1 are about 10 times more likely to show signs of this enerovirus infection, than children without diabetes.

Hmm. Interesting.

I know when Lenny was first diagnosed, prior to his diagnosis, he did in fact have a cold that just did not seem to go away. Coink-e-dink? Maybe!... maybe not. Maybe that cold is what triggered his diabetes to be set off? Who knows. I've given up on trying to "figure it out" lol.

Anywho, this article also stated that there was a review of studies prior to the recent findings that had found no link to type 1, however, those prior studies had only searched for the antibodies to enteroviruses in the blood, where the more recent study tested for the viral protein, which is more sensitive than blood testing.

While they still can not say that this is difinitively the "cause" of diabetes, they do plan to dig a little deeper into this new research.

For more information on this study, please read the article. It is a rather interesting article. Who knows, maybe one day we will know what causes our kids to have to live the way they do, and they will have a vaccine made in the future to ward off this condition for future generations!

What are your thoughts? Do you think there is an environmental link? Do you think its solely due to genetics? What are your theories?

2 comments:

Unknown said...

It is a multi-factoral cause in my opinion. I believe in the genetic predisposition...and then the environmental insult. The viral theory is very intriguing, I saw this study yesterday. My FIL sent it to me.

Dawn said...

That's a great point! The part about genetic predisposition I have always wondered about, mainly because I havent found an answer to my specific question about it. "By that, does it ONLY talking about relatives with type 1, or does type 2 count too?" Meaning... when they say for type 1 that genetics play a role in your risks of becoming type 1, are they referring to other relatives living with type 1 increases your risks? Or do they mean BOTH types, type 1 or 2, if you have family members with one or the other type in your family, that it increases your risk? Does that make sense?

Maybe one day I'll contact a Diabetes Researcher from the DRI that I have as a friend on FB and ask about that. So far, I've only searched online for that answer, and came up empty handed, as they only generalize that theory and arent specific to its meaning.