Does anyone know why the American Diabetes Association or doesn’t recongize Type 1.5? My Mom works for a non-for profit health center in Kansas City, MO and she has a diabetic radio show once a month. Last Wednesday she asked the panelist (doctor, ADA, and Optomoligist) about Type 1.5 diabetes. She called me upset because she couldn’t get a answer from them about it; how can she provide good information w/o the Doc input or the ADA. She said she was told there isn’t a such thing as Type 1.5. I asked her if she told them I had it. She said she mentioned she knew a young lady who was DX w/ Type 1.5/LADA and they still danced around the question.
I let her know to research the info on the internet and see if she could bring a Endo on her show, that way no one would be able to dance around the question about Type 1.5/LADA.
Does anyone know why the American Diabetes Association doesn’t recongize Type 1.5?
The American Diabetes Association’s emphasis is Type 2 diabetes, and to a large extent ADA ignores Type 1s (or exploits children with Type 1 to fundraise). According to the Expert Committee on the Diagnosis and Classification of Diabetes Mellitus (as published in ADA’s journals), “Type 1 diabetes results from a cellular-mediated autoimmune destruction of the beta-cells of the pancreas. In Type 1 diabetes, the rate of beta-cell destruction is quite variable, being rapid in some individuals (mainly infants and children) and slow in others (mainly adults).” So, Type 1.5/LADA is Type 1 diabetes according to ADA (and NIDDK/NIH). The problem as I see it is that ADA does not recognize that the majority of Type 1s acquire the disease as adults–ADA is always saying that Type 1 primarily strikes children (not true at all, according to ADA’s peer-reviewed scientific journals) and that it constitutes 5-10% of all diabetes (again not true–that statistic puts adult-onset Type 1/Type 1.5/LADA in the prevalence statistics for Type 2). If all autoimmune diabetes is included in the prevalence statistics for Type 1, it is about 20-25% of all diabetes).
I see the problem as being ADA’s denial of adult-onset Type 1 diabetes, which is two to three times more prevalent as childhood onset Type 1 (“Type 1 Diabetes in Adults: Principles and Practice” (Informa Healthcare, 2008, page 27). If the medical community had greater knowledge of adult-onset Type 1 diabetes, there would not be as much misdiagnosis (as Type 2) and as much suffering while Type 1s receive inappropriate treatment.
Actually, you need to read this: Classification and Diagnosis of Diabetes.. That will make it all clear as to the classifications and from the ADA-Diagnosis and Classification of Diabetes. Once you truly read those documents you will understand the position.
According to ADA’s peer-reviewed scientific journals, adult-onset autoimmune diabetes (included by definition in the category of Type 1 diabetes) represents approximately 10% of the population of “Type 2” diabetes, due to misdiagnosis. So the “Classification and Diagnosis of Diabetes” ignores that substantial group of people and includes them in the statistics for Type 2. Yet according to the Expert Committee, immune-mediated beta cell destruction does not occur in Type 2 diabetes. So yes, ADA ignores the largest group of Type 1 diabetics, and includes them in the prevalence statistics for Type 2 diabetes (a different disease altogether). Yes, I have read the “Classification and Diagnosis of Diabetes”, and no, I don’t understand why people with immune-mediated beta cell destruction are included by ADA in the category of Type 2 diabetes. It is time that ADA acknowledges the full scope of Type 1 diabetes. Misdiagnosis has tragic consequences.