Type 1 Diabetes Triggered by Animal Infection?

Study shows peaks and clusters of type 1 diabetes, paralleling viral patterns….

A team led by Dr. Colin Muirhead, Newcastle University, sought to strengthen evidence supporting the link between type 1 diabetes and an infectious origin. The team analyzed data on 468 children from 0-14 years of age diagnosed with type 1 diabetes between 1990 and 2007. Patients resided in a specified geographical region of northeast England.

Results illustrated temporal clustering, which suggested that the occurrence may be linked with an agent that displays epidemicity. The study confirmed the long-term cyclical variation of childhood type 1 diabetes. Researchers noted variability in the number of cases during each quarter of a year that was greater than expected under the Poisson distribution. Results demonstrated an increase in new cases during the winter months of some years, which researchers speculate could be a due to infections being more easily passed between people or from animals during this season.

Professor Mike Begon, co-author of the study, states, "It might not be a virus from an animal but what else in the environment has peaks every few years? Weather doesn’t do that, environmental factors don’t. It tends to be things like wildlife populations and their pathogens, but we don’t know for certain."

Future endeavors from this team include continued research to identify the causative infection(s) in order to prevent future exposure and improve treatment.

Muirhead CR, Cheetham TD, Court S, Begon M, McNally RJQ (2013) How Do Childhood Diagnoses of Type 1 Diabetes Cluster in Time? PLoS ONE 8(4): e60489. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0060489