The Rise in Juvenile Diabetes
And what might have caused it. Basic info/chart from Claude.ai
A friend’s grandson has just been diagnosed with juvenile diabetes so I went on a hunt for info. First stop, Claude. I can get basic info with resources, then flesh it out from there. Claude’s info is inset, I’m the regular type. (Haha, not so regular really.)
ME: Can you show me a chart of the rise of juvenile diabetes from its first discovery?
Here’s what the research tells us. Type 1 diabetes (the autoimmune form, historically called “juvenile diabetes”) was described in ancient medical texts but was essentially a fatal diagnosis before insulin’s discovery in 1921–1922.
The incidence was low and fairly stable through the early 20th century, with one carefully performed study showing no meaningful change in childhood incidence from 1925 to 1955. Diabetes Journals Then things started shifting — an almost simultaneous upturn was documented in several countries around mid-century, and the overall pattern since then has been one of linear increase.
I started first grade in 1960. As a child through college, the only people I knew with diabetes were old, and few and far between. One friend of my parents in my hometown had diabetes. From grade school through college, I didn’t know anyone with JD or autism or obesity or cancer. There was maybe one kid with glasses until I got to college.
Back in 2009 or so, when my cousin’s daughter developed JD, I went on my first hunt. We were living in Costa Rica (2006-2011) and the internet was alive with information! Hal and I spent hours online searching things we had questions about. In the vaccine groups, everyone believed vaccines caused JD just like autism because that’s when it happened: healthy kid, vaxxed, then JD. It’s actually listed on the MMR insert as an adverse event. Correlated because no one thought to study whether it was actually causation. (Don’t get me started.)
Here’s the data charted from what we know historically through the most recent figures:
A few key things to note about this picture:
Before 1922, type 1 diabetes was essentially a death sentence for children — there were no survivable cases to track. The discovery of insulin by Banting and Best in 1921–22 is what made the disease visible as a population-level phenomenon.
Banting and Best patented their product, then sold it to their university for $1 so everyone who needed it would have access to it. Eventually, however, Eli Lilly, Sanofi and Novo Nordisk got the patent and went for profits over people. Insulin costs/dose is roughly $6.
These companies have been able to extend their monopoly protection by “evergreening” which means they make incremental modifications to the product which keeps it protected under the patent.
The mid-century upturn is one of the more mysterious aspects of this story. An almost simultaneous rise was documented in several countries around mid-century, and the overall pattern since has been one of linear increase — with some evidence of a plateau in very high-incidence populations. Diabetes Journals
The modern acceleration: between 2001 and 2017, the estimated prevalence of type 1 diabetes in U.S. youth increased by 45%, with the largest increases among non-Hispanic White and non-Hispanic Black youth. The annual incidence among youth under 20 was 22.2 per 100,000 in 2017–2018, representing a steady ~2% annual increase since 2002. NCBI
Nobody knows for certain why it keeps rising. Researchers suggest an increased contribution from unidentified environmental or behavioral factors — dietary, infectious, or psychosocial — since the genetic risk profile of diagnosed children has actually shifted over time. The “hygiene hypothesis,” early childhood gut microbiome changes, and various environmental exposures are all active areas of research. New England Journal of Medicine
Poor Claude. Trained by conventional medicine so “nobody knows why”. We need an AI that is able to access ALL the info, not just what conventional doctors say.
ME: To what do scientists and doctors ascribe the rise?
The honest answer is: no one knows for certain, and that’s one of the more frustrating aspects of this disease. The rise is real and documented globally, but the cause remains contested. There is broad consensus that genetics alone can’t explain it — the human gene pool doesn’t change fast enough to account for a decades-long trend. [Emphasis mine.] So the search has focused on environmental triggers acting on a genetically susceptible population.
Here are the leading theories, ranked roughly by how much scientific support they currently carry:
The hygiene hypothesis is probably the most cited explanation. It’s considered the most promising theory, with supporting evidence from animal, human, and epidemiological studies. Journal of Molecular Endocrinology The basic idea is that as societies become cleaner and children are exposed to fewer pathogens, bacteria, and parasites early in life, the immune system — deprived of its natural “training” — becomes dysregulated and turns on the body’s own tissues, including pancreatic beta cells. Rates of type 1 diabetes are notably higher in wealthy, industrialized nations.
I seriously doubt that washing your hands too much can result in diabetes. OTOH, I’m fully on board with the theory that kids oughta be eating more dirt to bolster their immune systems.
Viral infections are a long-suspected trigger. Enteroviruses (especially Coxsackievirus B) have been found in the pancreatic tissue of newly diagnosed patients. The viruses may directly damage beta cells or, more likely, trigger an autoimmune response that does. Viral infections, diet, gut microbiota, and adiposity are all considered additional nongenetic factors likely involved in development of the disease, each capable of influencing induction of the disease process, activation of the destructive immune response, and progression to clinical-stage disease. Diabetes Journals
I am no longer on the “viruses cause illness” train. I RESISTED THIS IDEA WITH EVERY FIBER OF MY BEING!!! Alas, I am too curious. I started reading and eventually, I could not deny the facts of what I was learning.
Here are two illuminating resources on the truth about viruses. First is the book “The Truth About Contagion” by Dr. Thomas Cowan and Sally Fallon Morrell. Also available on Amazon.
I am an Amazon affiliate since 2009, but this book has been excluded from the program! I can promote it but I can’t make the commission pennies. I have never seen that exclusion before. Obvious censorship. It also could not be listed on Amazon under its original title, “The Contagion Myth” so Sally and Tom had to change it. To me, this says the ideas must be over the target.
The second resource is this interview from The Highwire with Alec Zeck and Dr. Ben Tapper. Alec and Ben are among the most vocal and educated experts on the virus topic. It’s a 2-hour listen, I listened at 1.5x and understood every word. If you want a relatively quick dive into an extremely deep topic, you’ll get it here.
Once the “virus obfuscation” is off the table, the REAL causes of illness and the real cures can be uncovered.
COVID-19 as an accelerant has emerged as a newer and concerning finding. A 2023 review in JAMA Network Open covering 17 studies and more than 38,000 children found that type 1 diabetes incidence was 14% higher in the first year of the pandemic and 27% higher in the second year compared to pre-COVID rates. A subsequent CDC study also found that children under 18 were more likely to be diagnosed with diabetes in the 30 days after testing positive for COVID than kids who hadn’t had it. HealthCentral
We now know that C19 was just a flu, no more or less dangerous than any other flu. So it’s hard to believe there’s even a correlation between having C19 and JD. Is there a correlation between regular flu and JD? Claude says there’s no significant signal. I’d need to really dive into this. One day I will.
In the recent study on the health outcomes of vaxxed vs. unvaxxed children, zero unvaxxed children developed diabetes. Read the study here, watch the movie about the study (free) here.
Gut microbiome disruption is receiving increasing research attention. Changes in the diversity and composition of the gut microbiome — driven by antibiotics, diet, C-section births, formula feeding, and processed foods — may impair immune regulation in ways that increase autoimmune risk. The TEDDY study (The Environmental Determinants of Diabetes in the Young), a major ongoing international cohort study, has produced substantial evidence linking early gut microbiome composition to later diabetes risk.
Dr. Andrew Wakefield’s 1999 study hypothesized that the MMR may cause bowel problems perhaps leading to autism. For even suggesting this, he lost his license to practice. However, studies to date completely vindicate him.
Vitamin D deficiency is another hypothesis, given that type 1 diabetes rates are highest in northern latitudes where sunlight is limited, and vitamin D plays a known role in immune modulation. The evidence here is suggestive but not conclusive.
We all know by now that “correlation is not causation”. This correlation seems extremely flimsy.
Cow’s milk and infant feeding practices have been studied for decades, with some evidence that early introduction of cow’s milk protein may trigger autoimmunity in genetically susceptible infants, though results across studies have been inconsistent.
Of course cow’s milk is implicated. It’s implicated in everything. Wonder if RAW milk was included in the “evidence” search?
The “accelerator hypothesis” proposes that rising rates of obesity and insulin resistance — even in children who are genetically predisposed to type 1 — accelerate the loss of beta cells by overworking them. This might explain why the youngest age group (under 5) has seen some of the steepest rises.
Ok, possible. What is causing the rising rates of obesity and insulin resistance? Frankly, the more I learn, the more I believe that evidence connecting obesity/sugar to diabetes is pretty flimsy as well. Curious.
Where does the scientific consensus land? Researchers increasingly believe that a single factor is unlikely to account for the global rise, and that a multifactorial process is at work — sometimes described as a “balance shift” model where multiple environmental pressures collectively tip susceptible individuals into autoimmunity. Journal of Molecular Endocrinology
The genetic risk profile of newly diagnosed children has also shifted over time, with more cases now occurring in individuals carrying lower-risk gene variants — suggesting that environmental pressure is doing more of the triggering work than it once did.
It’s an area of active and somewhat urgent research, particularly given projections that, if current trends hold, the number of youth with type 1 diabetes in the U.S. could more than triple by 2050. [Emphasis mine.]
There are certainly multiple environmental pressures at work in every illness! Doctors are JUST NOW coming around to that whereas mothers have known this for decades.
No mention of vaccines playing a role. Meanwhile, vaccines and JD rise in close proximity to each other:
I’m surprised there was no mention of 2nd hand smoke, one of the newest scapegoats for vaccine injury.
That’s what I have for now. Except two things:
I read an article recently about a mom who had cured her child’s JD. I will find that and share it.
If you are going to vax, have your child’s urine and blood tested beforehand (and any other tests you can) so you have a baseline. So so SO wish I’d thought of this!!!
More soon! xo Sally