So...what's the theories?, what causes type 1 in the first place?

[LaineyK]

Mine came about after some emotional trauma and a high stress situation. I'm convinced it had a lot to do with 'adrenal fatigue' a subject that's getting more air time now but not when i was diagnosed, it leads to all types of hormonal issues, damage to the endocrine system, too much cortisol in the body, lack of seretonin. We live in a society that is plagued by chronic stress. I heard on bbc radio 4 recently that advertisers used to use sex to sell products, this has now changed dramatically, and now they use 'terror' as their new marketing strategy, 'terror' sells. So we are all placed into an environment where we are subjected to high level of chronic stress. I see an increase in people globally becoming diabetic and the news getting more dramatic and charged with wall to wall war journalism, violence and other pretty nasty business. Now i tend to turn the news off and look for things that will lower my stress levels, so i use self hypnosis cds, and positive affirmation techniques, i could go on. So what causes diabetes? ... imo... just being human, toxins in the environment, the flaws in our genetic make up, globalization, the food we eat, a predisposition to high anxiety influenced by an Orwellian dystopia, the immorality of pharmo companies, oh... and global warming and hairdressers

Absobloodylutely... I Agree. Also a great sense of humour combats the disease!! Lol!! Thanks

 

[LaineyK]

The autoimmune reason is the main one, but bear in mind injury and acute pancreatitis can all result in the destruction of the pancreas.
The auto immune pathway as I understand it (research scientist, immunology dabbler, but not an expert). When a bug enter your body, you have a whole suite of specialist immune cells involved in triggering an immune response. The early part of the immune response is called the innate response and the innate immune cells are essentially pre-programmed with markers on the cell surface to recognise specific germs. The innate response drives the generation of a vigorous and specific acquired immune response which cleasr the infection from your body. How you respond to an infection depends on what range of markers you have on your innate cells. This is why some people are able to respond very well to, for example flu, whereas other can't (and can die). These markers are very important in determining how you will respond to specific infections and they are linked to auto-immunity. A number of surface markers (proteins) arrayed on the surface of natural killer cells (important cells in the innate response) have been identified as associated with type 1 diabetes. In addition, there are many other marker on many other cell type have also been identified, so the picture is complicated. The theory as I understand it is when you respond to an infection, your immune response can go off course and you can develop antibodies that cross-react and bind the beta insulin producing cells rather than the invading infection (hand, foot and mouth coxackie virus, is often associated with triggering diabetes) and targets the cells for destruction by a cytotoxic T-cells (cell killing cells). This may be because you respond in a certain way to an infection because of these pre-programmed markers but also environmental factors, disease exposure, diet, stress and probably many other reasons, that all work in concert to generate a bad immune response. So the whole picture is very complicated and there is no "one reason" as to why an individual develops diabetes.

That is so interesting, as I though I had hand foot mouth a few months ago, as feet and hands were peeling badly, red and itchy, losing layers of skin, no explanation! used some cream from docs and it got better, I've not had diabetes for more than 3 months my nurse says, so this may be my reason??? Halleluah!!

 

[Deleted member 45091]

iam not totally sure, I was diagnosed at 10, 24 years ago but I do know I got measles or chicken pox shortly before I was diagnosed

 

[Minnie45]

Interesting, I'd really love to know what caused mine, maybe one day there'll be some firm facts. In my case I was 6/7, I was a normal (possibly even a little skinny) weight according to my parents, it was a hot summer and I apparently started drinking lots, losing weight etc before becoming quite unwell and ending up in hospital. Mum is a T1 too, she developed it when she was 20, we've always wondered if it influenced my developing T1 but have been told numerous times no, having one T1 parent gives as much risk/chance as having 2 non T1 parents, risk increases with 2 T2 parents, only what we've been told over the years though. Another thing, despite mum being a T1 and quite often babies born to a T1 parent are fairly large, I apparently was very very small and was premature.

 

[Flakey Bake]

That is so interesting, as I though I had hand foot mouth a few months ago, as feet and hands were peeling badly, red and itchy, losing layers of skin, no explanation! used some cream from docs and it got better, I've not had diabetes for more than 3 months my nurse says, so this may be my reason??? Halleluah!!

I am not sure when my diabetes began exactly. My trigger was possibly pregnancy or the two bouts of hand foot and mouth I was exposed to. I is hard to know.

 

[azure]

I was diagnosed at 28 weeks pregnant so seems that something to do with being pregnant may have triggered it for me.

I was diagnosed in pregnancy too. My consultant said that the immune attack would have been going on for some time and the pregnancy pushed it over the edge into full-blown diabetes. I asked if the pregnancy somehow caused it, but she said it only brought forward slightly something that was going to happen.

I think that some illnesses do the same - push your body into diabetes. If I remember correctly, you can still be non-diabetic with just under 80% of your islets gone but if something stresses the body ( like pregnancy, flu, viruses, etc) then that'll push it over that line and you'll be diabetic.

Interestingly, she also said that lots of people have 'the diabetes genes' but they don't get diabetes. They're walking around with a time bomb but something needs to light the fuse.

My informed guesses are a lack of Vit D ( northern Europe has more Type 1), cows milk ( one study showed that bottle fed babies are much more likely to get diabetes), wheat, or maybe an unusual response to a virus. I think it's probably a cascade of those things with more than one thing involved, which may then lead to others affecting you. Eg if it's a reaction to a food, the gut could be damaged and then that could open the body to an attack from a virus that would otherwise be mild.

 

[LaineyK]

There's definately a pattern forming here with hand foot mouth...interesting....

 

[Emmotha]

Good thread!

My weird story is that myself and a friend - totally unrelated to each other - were diagnosed within 6 months of each other (ages 29 and 30)! No family histories or obvious causes there.

Another's friends son was diagnosed as a baby then 2 months later his dad was diagnosed as an adult (age 32).

SO we know T1s not catchable, but bugs are. Are there some certain bugs that trigger it in predisposed ppl and are these bugs on the rise?

They certainly do seem rather coincidental events!

 

[phoenix]

Emmotha , this article discusses clusters but tends to say that they probably are 'coincidence because of the time frames involved.
http://www.joslin.org/info/genetics_and_diabetes.html

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[Stefano]

Emmotha , this article discusses clusters but tends to say that they probably are 'coincidence because of the time frames involved.
http://www.joslin.org/info/genetics_and_diabetes.html

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That's an interesting article Phoenix....it's interesting to read about Sardinia (which is where I'm from). I became diabetic 35 years ago, in 1980 at the age of nine. 1980 is the year where in Sardinia there has been an explosion of T1 diabetes between children. The percentage is still 4 time higher than the percentage in the rest of Italy and no one yet understand the reason. While it is known that the highest percentage of diabetes cases is in northern Europe (I think it is Finland ) it is a mystery why in an island of the Mediterranean (Sardinia ) you've got so many cases and this trend started in 1980.

 

[lizdeluz]

There are two factors in my diabetes. My mother's side of the family has some form of auto-immune condition (which means it is likely genetic) that has resulted in vitiligo, thyroid issues and diabetes, amongst other things, in various members of the family. Fortunately so far it has been only one of the three per person.

The two of us who have been diagnosed diabetic were both in the 10-15 age group at diagnosis. Both of us are the same familial generation and both of us had had a bad dose of influenza in the 18 months prior to being diagnosed.

We therefore draw conclusions from our small population that we had a genetic predisposition and that the change in T-Cells that caused them to attack Beta cells was triggered by the flu.

But that's just us!

Sounds likely. The focus doesn't seem to be on cause these days but on the exciting possibility of implanting beta cells. My maternal grandmother features in beautiful brown family photos, she died when I was two. It's clear in several photos that she had had goitre. Prior to my T1 diagnosis at age 29, I developed hypothyroidism, I had 'flu, various stressful whammies, and I fell down the stairs, from top to bottom.

 

[dtennant9]

I was diagnosed during an extremely stressful event, I hadn't thought that there may be a link until a few months ago.

I am one of three in my family with Type 1 and was actually tested when I was born as my maternal Grandmother has it. It is now myself my Grandmother and an Aunt on the same side that all have it. We've also all been diagnosed as adults. My Gran was 30, my Aunt was 35 and I was 28. Don't really know if there is any kind of link or not.

 

[nmr1991]

Could also have been a type of sweetener that could have affected the way sugar/glucose behaves in the body, i know that I was binging on sugary soft drinks a week before diagnosis and a few cheap high juice squash products which started to taste foul and metallic and I started to feel sick after drinking them, some form of sweetener present in them could be the problem, it could be a switch in my genes that might have turned on or off whatever the case may be. For all I know it could be triggered by anything and it could be different for everyone. There's been no family history however a few of my siblings have it, and they have totally different lifestyles to me.

 

[Emmotha]

Yeah I've wondered about sweetners as I drink a lot of diet cola

 

[Robinredbreast]

My granddaughter was diagnosed at 2 1/2 years, and I have it too. I personally feel our destiny has already been marked out for us when born ( or even when conceived) as we are dealt a hand. How things in life affect us later on does also depend on the paths we decide to take.

Best wishes RRB

 

[pavmas]

I dont know what causes it but they better find out quick, I think it must be pestesides or something in plastic, but the amount of children that have type 1 is alarming, I got it at the age of 48 and think myself very lucky that I never had it any younger, I wa able to work raise a family whilst healthy.

A baby with diabetes is such a terrible thing and when they are teenagers thet rebel against everything such a bad situation to find yourself in.

One thing I know that education has to start to educate people about diabetes and how they can help as now diabetics having hypos are treated as drunk first.

 

[tim2000s]

I'm not sure the number of children being diagnosed with type 1 has changed as significantly as the number of children being diagnosed with type 2. What has increased from a t1 point of view, or so it seems, is the number of t1s diagnosed as adults. T1 was always seen as a juvenile onset condition when I was diagnosed.

 

[Auckland Canary]

I'm not sure the number of children being diagnosed with type 1 has changed as significantly as the number of children being diagnosed with type 2. What has increased from a t1 point of view, or so it seems, is the number of t1s diagnosed as adults. T1 was always seen as a juvenile onset condition when I was diagnosed.

I mentioned the number a T1 adults diagnosed earlier on. It really does seem more prevalent than 30 odd years ago. It would imply to me an environmental issue that maybe wasn't around until the1990's or 2000's.
However I think there are a number of factors involved and not just one. All of the different stories here suggest that. Personally I wasn't ill before diagnosis as far as I can remember however I was sick with undiagnosed T1 for about 2 months so I may have been ill previously and not remembered.

 

[Diamattic]

I looked into this when i was diagnosed last year.

My findings pointed to - Certain people are born with increased risk to developing T1D, at some point in their life they are exposed to something in their environment that triggers it. Most of what i read said it certain viruses can set off the body to attack the pancreas, destroying the beta cells, making us diabetic.

Some of the triggers were certain strains or types of viruses, but also i did read some papers stating something related to 'colder climates'. They say the locations that typically get cold weather have a much higher percentage of T1Ds, and more people develop it during the winter months.

Which fits my case. I am in Canada, Last year was apparently the coldest winter in my life time, and its when i developed my T1D.

So i can get behind the 'risk and trigger' theory. It makes sense, otherwise we would be born with it, so the potential has to be there, and something has to set it off.

EDIT - To add to this, when i diagnosed, i was never sick, no emotional or physical trauma. Nothing in my life 'suddenly changed' I had been living in the same place for years, with the same job, friends, gf.. Everything was normal, until one day things just went downhill... months later i was in the hospital. Still in good spirits.

TBH, sometimes i forget i have it lol I have lived 29 years without, and 10months with it, so between meals when i don't 'feel weird' or when i am doing things i love to do I forget its there. I hope to keep it this way as long as possible lol

 

[azure]

I'm not sure the number of children being diagnosed with type 1 has changed as significantly as the number of children being diagnosed with type 2. What has increased from a t1 point of view, or so it seems, is the number of t1s diagnosed as adults. T1 was always seen as a juvenile onset condition when I was diagnosed.

The number of children with T1 has been increasing decade by decade. There's been a particular increase in children under 5, which is quite shocking. I think the stats said it had increased five-fold in the last 20 years in those younger children. It'd be very interesting to know why it's increased so much, particularly in that age group.

I never understand why they don't screen people with T1 in an attempt to pin down a culprit. By chance, I had a blood screen for common viruses and the consultant was interested to see that I had never been exposed to a virus that's a major suspect in causing T1.

When I first got diabetes and the consultant told me they didn't know what caused it, I was expecting to be asked all kinds of questions in an attempt to gain information, but I was never asked anything at all. No-one seems very interested in the cause.