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.
Or higher caloric-density in food. What looks like a relatively small portion can still contain tons of calories. We equate caloric intake with the size of the portion we see.
My daughter’s friends’ child was an eight week old infant, still on breast milk, when diagnosed. Type One isn’t part of the obesity problem. I’m talking about autoimmune diabetes, not Type Two. Weight has nothing to do with T1. (My son was normal weight when he developed the first symptoms and underweight at the time of diagnosis.)