• Guest - w'd love to know what you think about the forum! Take the 2025 Survey »

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

Perhaps "it's all of the above". Infection, stress, shock, genes, weight, diet and anything else you can throw at it.
 
I think as said - all of the above. It's probably a bit like Type 2 - there are A LOT of causes, depending on a person. If you think about it any auto-immune condition is like an allergy - but on the inside :) And they still don't know what exactly causes allergies (ie overactive immune system) as well.
 
My worse symptom, the unquenchable thirst, came on after an overindulged bbq!!! Few too many beers and the hangover never went away!!!
 
LaineyK said:
My nurse said it could be from an infection, but I've not really been ill for a while. Had my hair lightened at hairdressers in December...wonder if chemicals entered my blood... I'm just being stupid now eh?
Click to expand...

He he he Lainey it's funny how all sorts of ideas can enter your head lol !!! Honestly you can seriously probe all theories when wanting the truth.

I remember speaking to a doctor once who specialised in type 1 and had attended a conference and told me about a story about a town in Norway that bordered onto a town in Russia, in Norway there was a high incidence of type 1 whereas in the town in Russia hardly any, they put it down to the fact that because they were more hygienic in Norway that it had stripped away people's natural immune defenses, and I can believe this in some respects, if we keep ourselves so clean then we remove the opportunity for our bodies to fight off germs on a regular basis which is what they are designed to do, so this in turn means our bodies attack our own cells as an auto immune reaction.

Moto of the story, roll around in mud, don't wash hands so much etc and we become stronger at maintaining our own immune systems ;)
 
Last edited by a moderator:
Susceptible genetics and a trigger (virus or whatever) when my cells decided to select the wrong target.

I've had a SNP test (23andme gene test), and I've been trying to look at the various variants that predispose to T1. None of them cause it directly, they just increase risk. You can be highly predisposed but not develop it.
I've been finding that in many cases, including those in the genes that control the immune system I have inherited 1 risk allele(variant) and 1 'normal' allele. I find this interesting because I didn't develop T1 until I was 52. It's just chance that the way the chromosomes were shuffled resulted with so many cases of inheriting one benign and one risk allele There are only a few cases when I have received a risk allele from both parents (haven't finished looking yet)

One variant which I did receive from both parents results in me being resistant to Norovirus and some other 'stomach bugs'; not all This is variant affects about 1 in 5-6 people.It makes one gene non functional If it worked then my blood group proteins would be secreted in my mucosa .This includes the fluids in the gut.. Some viruses and bacteria use these proteins to latch onto.Without them they can't live there so they die. This variant carries a slightly increased risk of T1 ( and also coeliac and Crohns).One theory is that this variant is good in that you won't get sick from some of these 'bugs' however perhaps because the immune system has fewer viruses to fight ,it may respond inappropriately when it encounters an unusual one.
 
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 :)
 
Last edited by a moderator:
One thing that I have wondered about is the seeming increase in adults being diagnosed with T1. I have no evidence to back this fact up but when I was diagnosed in 1983 it seemed to be almost exclusively a childhood condition. Now just reading the posts here it seems many more people are diagnosed as adults.

I went on a DAFNE course a couple of years ago and out of the 7 people 4 were diagnosed as adults and only 3 as children. One of the people (who was diagnosed in her late 40's) worked in a school and said that around her diagnosis there was another adult and child that were diagnosed within 3 months of each other. Up until that point there were no T1's in the school. This may suggest an environmental factor at play here.

Love to hear others opinions on this.
 
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!
 
Robinredbreast said:
I had trauma and shock before I was diagnosed, then feeling very ill all the time, it was suspected colitis. Then I became type 1 a little later. Throughout the world so many people go through shock, stress, trauma, worries and their body don't attack it's self, so It looks like some people are already pre conditioned to get type 1. Also, it is in my family, my uncle ( on my mum's side) and their mother ? but that's a bit vague because she died when my mum was just 6 years old and uncle was about 4 then.

RRB
Click to expand...

Also my granddaughter is now type 1 and I do seem to get hit with so many other auto immune conditions as well. Not coughs or colds and I've never had flu either !

RRB
 
I wish I knew what caused mine. I had no infection or trauma before I was diagnosed I was just an average happy 1 year old! There is no family history of it for me either.
 
Mike D said:
Perhaps "it's all of the above". Infection, stress, shock, genes, weight, diet and anything else you can throw at it.
Click to expand...

Definitely shock and extreme upset in my case, at the time. I weighed 8 1/2 stone, active and fit and still the same, except for an extra 1/2 stone. :grumpy:

RRB :)
 
My diagnosis was strange in that I was identified as having a high risk of developing it during a study I took part in because I had a sibling with type 1..........

before the study ended I was diagnosed.........so when did I get diabetes? did the process start a way back when I was tested before the study....?

I didn't have any infections or traumatic experiences before then, so I don't know if that would be the cause..........

for me I believe its genetic and also as result of the environment around us over the decades......

who knows though.........
 
As many have said, there are an endless range of possibles. In my case I think it was a virus. I applied to be drug trial volunteer with my local big pharma and my blood test results (taken before allowing me to proceed) showed no diabetes but a high white cell count i.e. inflammation somewhere. I was refused admission. I felt fine. It was about 1-2 years later that my diabetes hit very quickly. Apart from this blood test I would never had known I had some sort of infection going on.
 
I was diagnosed at 28 weeks pregnant so seems that something to do with being pregnant may have triggered it for me.
 
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.
 
Back
Top