Are more people getting Type 1 in their late twenties and early thirties?

[KennyA]

I feel like this should be a more mainstream issue than it is. This is basically what Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. has been talking about for years and the media calls him a crank and conspiracy theorist. Why are more people getting chronic diseases?

Shouldn't we be trying to find out the cause so we can stop it? Even with modern technology like the closed loop system, type 1 diabetes is a terrible affliction and it costs the taxpayer enormous sums of money.

It's the elephant in the room that successive governments are trying to ignore. The same source (Bilous and Donnelly) estimate that 17% of all NHS resource will be spent on diabetes by 2035. They weren't exactly right about their last prediction, because the 9% forecast level was reached a few years early. And, of that percentage:

-75% of resource goes on managing the long-term vascular complications (blindness, amputations, CVD etc), only a small fraction goes on diabetes treatments and surveillance

-90% of all resources are spent on type 2

 

[Ushthetaff]

Diagnosed age 17 in 1980, about two weeks after I got knocked unconscious playing 5 a side footy . Back then you were T1 or T2 and that was it. I was told that T1 normally gets diagnosed between the ages of 16-25 , like the treatment things and knowledge have definitely changed since then

 

[SueJB]

I was 68 when T1 struck

 

[jaywak]

Maybe just the stress of being a teenager is enough for an autoimmune problem to occur in our bodies , I think at 16 when I was diagnosed I was so stressed out with leaving school, getting a job and family problems I am not surprised my body rebelled , with people saying nowadays they are so stressed out all the time maybe that could be contributing to more later in life diagnosis happening .

 

[Jiveyjane]

Interesting question. I was diagnosed aged 8. Well on my 8th birthday.

I work with a guy who’s wife was diagnosed during pregnancy.
& there are a few members on here I believe were also in adulthood when diagnosed.

I was diagnosed at 47 initially T2 until autoantibody test showed T1. Probably a variant I was told. I do wonder how many slim T2s are in fact T1. My original consultant diagnosed T1 immediately but the next one refused to accept that and she would not do the tests either. Took me nearly 20 years to get the tests.
I had a really severe flu like infection shortly before diagnosis.

 

[LionChild]

I was diagnosed with Type 1 aged 12. The impression I got at the time was this was the most common age for the condition to come on. I was also told people can get Type 1 up to about age forty but it's very rare.

In the last few years, almost every new type 1 diabetic I meet is an adult who was diagnosed within the last two years. This seems like a new thing.

I know this is just anecdotal but is something going on here? Is the absolute number of people getting Type 1 on the increase?

Apparently, people can still get Type 1 in their early 70s. I am now 73, and I was diagnosed in 2019 when I was 67, just before Covid seems to have started: (Autumn 2019). I think you are correct about more older adults getting it. Being rare 'with this and that' is something of my speciality however.

 

[LionChild]

Maybe just the stress of being a teenager is enough for an autoimmune problem to occur in our bodies , I think at 16 when I was diagnosed I was so stressed out with leaving school, getting a job and family problems I am not surprised my body rebelled , with people saying nowadays they are so stressed out all the time maybe that could be contributing to more later in life diagnosis happening .

Yes, I think often stress can play a massive part in the development of Type 1.

 

[LionChild]

I was diagnosed at 47 initially T2 until autoantibody test showed T1. Probably a variant I was told. I do wonder how many slim T2s are in fact T1. My original consultant diagnosed T1 immediately but the next one refused to accept that and she would not do the tests either. Took me nearly 20 years to get the tests.
I had a really severe flu like infection shortly before diagnosis.

Yes, I, too, had an illness just prior to my diagnosis. I had a serious bout of bronchitis when I actually felt so poorly I thought I was on my way out! And also, as I mentioned elsewhere, I was struggling with a great deal of stress. I do think the two things together can add up to the development of TYPE 1.

 

[rookayj]

I was diagnosed aged 28 with no medical issues, family history or significant events. I’m 40 now and over it

 

[Antje77]

I do wonder how many slim T2s are in fact T1.

I think it's even worse with fat 'T2's'.
Being fat doesn't protect you in any way from developing an autoimmune condition like T1, but at least being slim and diabetic may give some health care professional the idea that something may not be adding up.

I was diagnosed with 'T2' at 39, with a BMI of 35, of course no-one was going to think anything but T2.
Within weeks it became clear that gliclazide plus cutting carbs definitely didn't do the trick so I as on basal insulin a month after diagnosis, and I begged for bolus insulin shortly after that.

Still, the practice nurse who looked after my treatment had no idea why I thought I might be anything but a T2 when I asked for a referral to an endo two years later.

 

[RobertJ]

Yes, I think often stress can play a massive part in the development of Type 1.

I am not sure that explains why type 1 diagnoses are increased 3 to 4 per cent a year.

 

[Chris 88]

I was diagnosed with Type 1 aged 12. The impression I got at the time was this was the most common age for the condition to come on. I was also told people can get Type 1 up to about age forty but it's very rare.

In the last few years, almost every new type 1 diabetic I meet is an adult who was diagnosed within the last two years. This seems like a new thing.

I know this is just anecdotal but is something going on here? Is the absolute number of people getting Type 1 on the increase?

I was diagnosed with type one at the age of 30 in 1980. Despite all the usual signs (thirst, peeing, huge loss of weight, extreme tiredness), my GP missed it for months. When we got to it, he said he’d missed it because onset at my age was so unusual. Diagnosis in the end was by a friend in the pub. A very experienced consultant physician. Whose only clinical test was ‘are there white spots on your shoes?’!!
45 years on I’m pretty fit and active. Though I’ve gone through spells of lots of hypos. Now I’ve accepted that I shouldn’t push too hard to keep my blood sugars tight. My results do run higher than the recommended but my clinical team tell me not to worry about that, at my age and with no complications. I took a lot of convincing about that. But I’m there now and with very few hypos.

 

[Marikev]

A very experienced consultant physician. Whose only clinical test was ‘are there white spots on your shoes?’!!

Can remember being told this by my grandfather, who I very recently found out had Type 1 diabetes. I was about 7 at the time, with no idea what it meant! I assume grandad was diagnosed later in life, since he was born many years before the development/discovery? of insulin…
I was diagnosed 3 years ago at age 68 and completely missed the symptoms I had developed. Sudden loss of weight, peeing a lot and urgently, loss of appetite(?) , blurred vision. My GP had requested an urgent CT scan of my pelvic area as part of investigating ongoing problems with ‘a dodgy tummy’, which just showed some slight internal inflammation.
Went back to see the GP, who took a blood test, which produced a BS level of 33! (I had eaten a bowl of coco pops for breakfast before driving to the doctor!) The next morning we were woken up by an ambulance crew in the house, despatched by the GP who had been unable to contact us on our phones, on silent, on charge, in another room!
I spoke to the GP on the phone and was told to go to the main hospital, ‘for more tests’. I still had no idea what was the matter with me. Happily made my way to the city and the hospital where I was directed to follow the red line, which turned out to be the path to the Emergency room!
Feel lucky to be around to tell the tale!

 

[LionChild]

I am not sure that explains why type 1 diagnoses are increased 3 to 4 per cent a year.

Nature and Nurture probably. If a person is already genetically predisposed to be vulnerable to developing TYPE 1, then other factors can trigger it, and stress is one of those factors I believe. Other aspects of the environment we are now living in might have an impact on our immune systems. An aunt of mine had Type 1, and I think it can run in families.

 

[Melgar]

I am not sure that explains why type 1 diagnoses are increased 3 to 4 per cent a year.

I agree with @LionChild on the genetic predisposition. Also we have a better understanding of the development of diabetes and the ability to differentiate autoimmune diabetes across different ages ranges from diabetes that is predominantly caused by a rise in insulin resistance. Until a few years ago T1 was thought to develop only in children and young adults. This has now been completely revised, and we now know T1 can develop at any age in genetically prone individuals.

 

[Jaylee]

I am not sure that explains why type 1 diagnoses are increased 3 to 4 per cent a year.

I’d be inclined to take the “outside the box” thinking further off the beaten path & possibly look at the difference between adult’s autoimmune responses in comparison to children’s?
Just a theory. But maybe mutating viruses have just put some adults immune systems on a constant “defcon 1?”
(Beta cells being the “collateral damage.”)

 

[Melgar]

I read somewhere, and I'll dig the article out, that the genetic risk factor is lower in adults than it is for children and young adults, this relates to the DQ2/8 and DR3/4 genotypes. Children often having both types, therefore at greater risk (Interestingly I too have both DQ and DR types) The auto antibodies variation is greater in children, not just GADA , but also the production of IAA, ZnT8Ab and ICA autoantibodies.

Adult onset T1 is more common than child onset, probably because of the age ranges involved - 20 years for children / young adults compared to 20 years upwards thus 20/80+ years. I just skimmed the surface of the biological factors. Then of course there are environmental factors as well.

https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC8546280/

Edited to add paper.