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

[RobertJ]

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?

 

[Jaylee]

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.

 

[Antje77]

I think it's much more likely that fewer people stay misdiagnosed as a 'T2 on insulin' for the rest of their lives nowadays. I'm not sure that tests for C-peptide or antibodies were even possible in your youth.

Here's a recent graph on age on diagnosis, but even that one must hold quite a lot misdiagnosed 'T2's', especially when they are older and overweight. What GP would think about T1 in a patient who has been on insulin for years?

Graph will follow tonight, I have it saved on my computer at home, not on the one at work.

 

[Introverted_And_Proud]

I was also told people can get Type 1 up to about age forty but it's very rare.

Funnily enough, my maternal granddad was diagnosed with Type 1 diabetes at the age of 30, around the 1970s. I was diagnosed at the age of 21, about seven years ago. I've yet to encounter anyone else who was diagnosed with Type 1 diabetes as an adult, though in my experience, I think medical history and circumstances of the patient could play a part somewhere.

I don't know how my granddad wound up with his diagnosis. But in my case, I have some factors in my medical history that could have increased my risk of it, though my family and I suspect a traumatic event I experienced eight months before my official diagnosis could have ultimately triggered it. The DSNs couldn't confirm if this was true when I brought it up to them, of course, but they did say it was a possibility. Diabetes is an autoimmune disease, so I wouldn't be surprised if my trauma wreaked havoc on my immune system and then caused it to attack my pancreas.

 

[Jaylee]

Funnily enough, my maternal granddad was diagnosed with Type 1 diabetes at the age of 30, around the 1970s. I was diagnosed at the age of 21, about seven years ago. I've yet to encounter anyone else who was diagnosed with Type 1 diabetes as an adult, though in my experience, I think medical history and circumstances of the patient could play a part somewhere.

I don't know how my granddad wound up with his diagnosis. But in my case, I have some factors in my medical history that could have increased my risk of it, though my family and I suspect a traumatic event I experienced eight months before my official diagnosis could have ultimately triggered it. The DSNs couldn't confirm if this was true when I brought it up to them, of course, but they did say it was a possibility. Diabetes is an autoimmune disease, so I wouldn't be surprised if my trauma wreaked havoc on my immune system and then caused it to attack my pancreas.

There was a discussion on the “traumatic event” leading up to a T1 diagnosis.
When I was diagnosed as a kid. My mum thought it was “attributed” to a fall down a flight of stairs??

It is said it is an “autoimmune response attacking beta cells in the pancreas.

However. One thing came up for others in the discussion, ENT issues just prior. Tonsils & stuff?
Oddly, I did had issues with adenoids & was due for a procedure on them.
But first I was diagnosed with the usual a suspects. weight loss, frequent urination & excessive thirst & the symptoms of DKA..

 

[Antje77]

I think it's much more likely that fewer people stay misdiagnosed as a 'T2 on insulin' for the rest of their lives nowadays. I'm not sure that tests for C-peptide or antibodies were even possible in your youth.

Here's a recent graph on age on diagnosis, but even that one must hold quite a lot misdiagnosed 'T2's', especially when they are older and overweight. What GP would think about T1 in a patient who has been on insulin for years?

Graph will follow tonight, I have it saved on my computer at home, not on the one at work.

Here's the graph. For what it's worth, I was diagnosed at 39 (48 now), and I can't think of any significant medical history or trauma that could be relevant to my diagnosis.

 

[cait 57]

I was diagnosed aged 53 three weeks after mum passed away. I have three siblings diagnosed aged 11, 21 and 31 years. Two nephews now T1 xx aged 11 and 32 years

 

[mefunk]

I was diagnosed T1 in Jan 2014, age 58

 

[Introverted_And_Proud]

There was a discussion on the “traumatic event” leading up to a T1 diagnosis.
When I was diagnosed as a kid. My mum thought it was “attributed” to a fall down a flight of stairs??

It is said it is an “autoimmune response attacking beta cells in the pancreas.

However. One thing came up for others in the discussion, ENT issues just prior. Tonsils & stuff?
Oddly, I did had issues with adenoids & was due for a procedure on them.
But first I was diagnosed with the usual a suspects. weight loss, frequent urination & excessive thirst & the symptoms of DKA..

My traumatic event was the sudden death of a close relative. Completely blindsided me. I had to deal with that loss on top of my family trauma dumping on me in the months following it. I don't recall experiencing any issues with my eyes, throat, or ears at that time. But I was never given the chance to properly process my grief, so I have to wonder if that ultimately caused my body to turn on itself. According to the doctors, they traced my diabetes development back to just under three months prior to my diagnosis, which I recall I (unknowingly, because I had no knowledge about diabetes as a whole back then) started experiencing hyperglycaemia symptoms; constant thirst and hunger, frequent urination, weight loss, all of which I ignorantly explained away to be the result of either the warm weather at the time or my unresolved grief. But what ended up tipping me off and sending me to my GP was an allergy rash developing across my abdomen in the third month, which I now suspect was actually my body's way of warning me that something was wrong, because I have no medical history of allergies. It's crazy how your body can react to certain things sometimes.

 

[Andrew2018]

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 diagnose as Type 1 at 35, over 30 years ago, and at the time the consultant described me as " a statistical anomaly", with most cases being juvenile onset or mature onset. There seem to be more gradings these days, however many still only really think of type one rather than type two. Depends who's telling you, the actual person with it, or second hand.

 

[NcP]

I was diagnosed as type 1 aged 35 (closer to 15 yrs ago than I'd like) no history of diabetes in the family, and no traumatic events. Doctors best guess was that maybe stress from my job at the time caused it, due to long hours and pressure.

 

[Waynerich]

Hi all, I got it aged 13 and had never heard of it before getting it. I remember thinking that this does not happen to people like me, but it did lol.

 

[MuttNJeff]

I was diagnosed as type 1 approaching age 35 in 1991. That followed some very stressful work in the preceding months, and possibly an infection in the spring (from being tolerably fit, suddenly lost all power, then recovered after a few weeks). And then realised my eyes were too bad to drive. Went to GP, prescribed metformin (?) but he then referred me to the local hospital - got a call mid-afternoon at work, asking me to get a minicab to the hospital.

My father was the youngest of his family, my first cousins on his side are all considerably older than me, but several of their children (2nd cousins ? 1st cousin once removed ?) were diagnosed at very young ages.

As science advances, diagnoses are, we hope, more accurate.

 

[Waynerich]

I am now 67, so, plenty of experience.

 

[SallyEzra]

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 have no idea. Most Type 1 diabetics I encounter were diagnosed as children. I was diagnosed at age 11. I notice with my children, currently 6yrs & 10yrs, that they frequently talk about friends in their classes that are type 1 diabetic. Obviously if they see the child's blood sugar dropping very low, then they are on familiar territory, as they have seen this with me at home.....when I hyper focus on some work or other.
I don't believe in my adult life that I have met another Type 1 diabetic that was diagnosed at any other point than childhood.

 

[zerospam]

My Mum was diagnosed aged 38, I was 11 then my Brother aged 16. This was all in the 80’s with glass syringes.

 

[Marikev]

I was diagnosed at age 68. Was told in the Emergency room I would be on insulin for the rest of my life……and I just assumed I had developed Type 2 diabetes. Asked pathetically if I could quit the insulin if I lost some more weight, ate better and exercised more…was told … No!
Spent 5 days in the hospital, being taught how to finger stick and inject insulin, they wouldn’t declare type 1 or 2 till all the blood tests had been done. Two weeks later I got a phone call to tell me it was type 1, by which time I had kind of figured that.
At my first check up with a nurse at the hospital she told me that I wasn’t the oldest at diagnosis she had come across.. 80!
Have since been told my maternal grandfather had type 1 which I’m assuming he must have developed later in life, since he was born in 1886… just a few years before insulin was produced.

 

[MrsA2]

I have 2 good friends both diagnosed t1 at age 56, and another diagnosed at 88.
I don't know anyone younger, but then I don't know as many young people as I do older ones!

 

[LozzaB]

I was diagnosed 2 years ago aged 28, which was a shock to me and a lot of people. Everyone assumes when you get older it’s generally Type 2. I had a bad bout of Covid/pneumonia which I believe triggered my immune system to attack. No history in the family.
I have noticed a lot more people wearing cgm’s tho, which I wouldn’t have noticed if not for being diagnosed.

 

[Melgar]

Diagnosis is moving on from the days when T1 was thought a childhood onset condition. We still have GP's who still think it only happens to children.

We are seeing too many people misdiagnosed as T2, when in fact they are T1. My brother was diagnosed T2 then he was re diagnosed as a T1. Nearly every older adult who develops diabetes seems to be automatically diagnosed T2. The issues come later, depending on the speed of autoimmune destruction. Some are thankfully re diagnosed, but still too many end up on insulin as a T2 for the rest of their lives when they are actually T1. I knew of two women in their 80's who were re diagnosed T1. Hopefully, we will get to a point when C- Peptides are a routine test.