Juvenile diabetes, long regarded as extremely rare, has recently rocketed up the list of autoimmune diseases affecting children. In fact, according to The Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation (JDRF), the incidence of this disease increased 23% between 2001 and 2009, with no known explanation.
Juvenile diabetes, now called Type I diabetes, is unlike Adult onset or Type II diabetes in that it is completely unrelated to weight or diet. This type of disease occurs when the immune system turns on the pancreas, attacking and destroying the insulin-producing cells. This autoimmune response can begin at any age.
There is currently no known cause or cure.
Most research to date suggests that Type I diabetes likely results from the combination of genetic susceptibility and exposure to environmental triggers. However, because of the slow pace of genetic change, environmental risk factors appear to be the de facto reason behind the recent increase in disease.
One widely accepted theory is that Type I diabetes may be triggered by a viral infection, such as a stomach virus or the flu. The basis for this explanation is the ‘molecular mimicry’ theory. In the simplest terms, the virus looks like the body’s own insulin-producing cells, so the immune system attacks them along with the infection. Without those cells, no insulin is produced, and insulin-dependent diabetes is the result.
Viral infections, however, are not new to the environment, and therefore, do not fully explain the recent jump in numbers.
Another emerging hypothesis takes molecular mimicry one step further and includes the immune response following vaccination as a possible trigger.
This theory suggests that an autoimmune disease may be triggered after vaccination in the same way doctors and scientists believe it is set off by viral illness.
The human immune system responds to both vaccination and to viral infection in much the same way: it identifies the foreign invader, learns to recognize and remember that invader, and then destroys it. It is on this basic premise that immunization is effective in neutralizing future infections. After exposure to the remembered pathogen, the immune system kicks back into action. When human cells look like these invaders, the immune system fails to turn itself off and continues to destroy healthy cells.
Concerns over the expansion of the vaccination program and the concurrent spike in Type I diabetes was enough to prompt a CDC funded study to investigate the connection. Another article published in Pediatrics in 2001 concluded that vaccines were not connected to Type I diabetes; however, the lead author of that study has recently been accused of manipulating research to produce the CDC’s desired outcome in another vaccine-related study.
A 2014 study published in the Journal of Molecular and Genetic Medicine states that “evidence that vaccines cause type I diabetes has been well established.”
There are no definitive answers revealing the cause of the rise in Type I diabetes, and more research must be conducted to determine the environmental component that is responsible for the dramatic climb in the incidence of this devastating, life-long illness.
This article has been updated November 2015.