Mom’s Stress May Trigger Diabetes-Related Autoimmunity in Children

Mothers’ psychological stress, measured as exposure to negative life events, seems to be involved in the onset or progression of diabetes-related beta-cell destruction in young children.

These are the findings of a study of 5986 consecutive children and their families participating in a Swedish prospective population-based study, which show that mothers’ experience of divorce or violence raised the risk of diabetes-related autoimmunity in children at age 2.5 years by roughly threefold. The odds ratios were 3.6 for divorce and 2.9 for violence (p < 0.05 for both).

"Theoretically," Dr. Anneli Sepa stated that, "this could be explained by increased cortisol concentrations leading to insulin resistance, which in turn may stress the insulin-producing beta cells and thereby trigger a diabetes-related autoimmune reaction in genetically predisposed children."

"Somewhat surprisingly," she added, "the associations between psychological stress and autoimmunity were not likely to be explained by any of the known risk factors for type 1 diabetes analyzed: type 1 diabetes in the family or extended family, increased parental age, childhood infections, body weight of the child, delivery by caesarean section, and the need for neonatal intensive care."

Based on these results and results from a previous study, Dr. Sepa and colleagues from Linkoping University conclude that psychological stress could be a risk factor for the development of type 1 diabetes, since it appears to be one trigger mechanism behind diabetes-related autoimmunity early in life.

"Therefore, it is important to reduce negative stress in children and this issue needs priority especially among clinicians working with children," Dr. Sepa said. "It is central to look at the whole family situation and to try to reduce parenting stress, by for example discussing various coping strategies in connection with serious life events."
Diabetes Care 2005;28:2394-2399.

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