http://diabetes.diabetesjournals.org/content/51/12/3353.full
The rates are increasing at about 3% a year worldwide, and it’s fairly constant throughout. The very best data is from the last 50 years in the Western world (20 years throughout) and it’s showing a steady uptick in every population. Interestingly, Northern Europeans and, of all places, Kuwait are leading the trend.
To get to the ‘meat’ of the article, go to the “Discussion” section.
The thing that raises my eyebrows the most is the age of onset is also getting younger, with even small infants being diagnosed. That actually has produced one theory: that susceptible kids are just getting sicker younger and that there may not be an overall increase after all. (We’ll see)
So whatever is triggering the disease is something that even very young kids are exposed to (or there’s something that they should’ve been exposed to in early infancy - pinworms, bacteria - that they’re *not* getting). Whatever the that is, began about 60 years ago.
I’ll add to this discussion. My mom taught in a k-12 inclusive rural school beginning in 1964. NONE of their kids had t1d. Out of several hundred kids. That would have been a ‘big deal’ requiring a refrigerator for the kid’s insulin injections. Moreover they’d heard of kids who had bee sting allergies that were bad enough to kill but none of the kids in that school system ever had anything like that. There were no pediatric cancer cases either.
Fast forward to the same school system with the same demographics. Every year there are 3 or 4 pediatric cancer cases, there are double digit numbers of epi-pens on hold in the principal’s office, just in case. And there are 12-15 (depending on the year) t1d kids. I’m sure all that’s just ‘better diagnosis’ and ‘rent seeking’. /s
Steep increases in caloric intake also occurred about 60 years ago along with the agricultural green revolution and technological advancements that created the modern urban sedentary, entertainment based lifestyle.
From what I’ve read, the greatest increases are occurring in developing countries, i.e. higher caloric intake.
So I’m not sure that diabetes is a function of a newly introduced pathogen or mechanism, so much as a function of lifestyle change evolving from technology.
I suspect increasing maternal obesity plays a large role in the increasing numbers of younger children developing the disease.