Here’s a little blurb on vaccines and diabetes: http://www.naturalnews.com/023902.html. Of course, the validity of these studies is always questionable, but for a disease for which nobody seems to know the cause, it’s certainly no less valid a theory than another.
Infammation-
Thank you
Actually, since Classen’s studies are examples of “bad science” that cannot be replicated, it is indeed a less valid theory. See Diabetes Monitor article (http://www.diabetesmonitor.com/b87.htm). Type 1 diabetes existed for thousands of years (see original Turkish and Egyptian descriptions) before vaccines.
Please don’t punch me!! :^) But I am not sure why you appear to want to completely discount a connection between sugar consumption and diabetes. While there are certainly multiple factors involved as a whole our society consumes far more sugar than in the past and the fact that there is a corresponding rise in diabetes may not be inconsequential. it does not seem wholly improbable to me that sugar consumption has something to do with diabetes. Just before I was diagnosed in my 20s I was leading a very poor life style with respect to eating and consumed a lot more sweets that I had previously been accustom to growing up. A weakened immune system with lots of sugar intake? Along with a virus? Not sure, but I am not sure it is not unrelated. Obviously there is not a one to one correlation (between sugar consumption and type 1 diabetes), but I can’t discount it as a possible reason (there are likely more than one cause for it in fact). There are no other diabetics in my family tree btw, so it is not genetic as far as I can tell (in my case).
This is a " tongue in cheek" theory …not by me , but overheard in early 1983 .
I had already participated in several yearly Polar Bear swims , the first of January , Vancouver, BC , Canada .Approx 1800 folks , some dress up, go into the chilly Pacific waters .
January 1983 I was diagnosed with diabetes …someone suggested it was due to partaking in the Polar Bear swims . I did this a total of 8 times , with the hope it would cure me ( another tongue in cheek theory…mine 
) And I know it is a cool , crazy ,nutty pass time , every Jan 1 .
And you would think that after thousands of years, somebody would have figured out what causes Type 1 diabetes!
Great point Melitta!
And for thousands of years, so have viruses and bacteria existed, that could make the body’s immune system go into overdrive or maybe make it produce the wrong antibodies. Maybe time is producing more people with faulty immune systems, which could account for the increase in Type 1? The trigger could even be different things for different people! For most autoimmune diseases, they don’t yet know the trigger.
@pandora42 - You have a choice - don’t get furious. Accept they don’t know. Point them to some literature and if they don’t want to learn the difference, you may have to live with that. Expending energy on getting furious? Waste of good energy! LOL And if they keep at you, tell them you’ll have to run that by your doctor, DE or whoever, first, or ask them how they know - can they point to some references that say the info is for T1.
Mostly you just can’t change other people, but you can work on changing how you react.
I get that T1/T2 thing so often I’ve lost count. I sometimes thank people for their idiotic info (depends who) and then promptly ignore it (and them if I can). There’s a small planet out there who don’t know the difference between T1 and T2. You’re not alone in being the brunt of it.
There’s no provable connection between Type 1 and sugar consumption. There is however a chemically provable connection between high fructose corn syrup and all sorts of diseases including Type 2, but that’s another story.
I’m not going to argue the point too much, but why do babies get Type 1 when they are exposed to very little solid food, including sugar? Why do so many obese people NOT get any form of diabetes? Why do healthy people who do not eat sweets, and have a very healthy diet, get Type 1? Why is Type 1 more prevalent in colder climates?
Sugar consumption has nothing to do with it.
All carbohydrates, including sugar get converted to glucose in the body. The molecules are no different in the blood stream if you eat a bunch of potatoes, a bowl of salad, fruit, a bar of chocolate or even a piece of protein or a tub of butter, (a % of protein and fat also get converted to glucose - see posts on TAG). Glucose is glucose!
Insulin converts all food in some proportion to glucose. So, you could just as easily say that over-consumption of potatoes or fruit or tubs of butter got you the diabetes. Sugar is half fructose and half glucose that, like everything else, ends up as glucose in your blood stream. So I’m wondering how’s it possible that only the sugar you ate can cause Type 1 diabetes?
Just a general point - people talk about a ‘weakened immune system’, when I suspect it’s the opposite - one that is producing too many antibodies, and the wrong ones at that. Maybe we should be calling it a ‘faulty immune system’ rather than a weakened one, in which the antibody response would be lacking.
I am starting to think it could be related to some kind of allergy maybe gluten or lactose…its still a guess but i am gonna check if i have any alergies to those…cause i was in great health before i got it…no viruses and no sickness what so ever…
It seems time and again I have read about a person’s discovery of T1 after a difficult or prolonged illness.
One would have to be also predisposed to T1, although I have never been real sure about this term.
How many are predisposed and never get T1? Does predisposed have to do with genetics? etc., ect.
I don’t know if someone has already said it but PLEASE take this into consideration when looking at the “rising” trend of type 1 diabetes (or really any chronic condition): We have only recently begun to truly analyze the statistics of things like this. It’s likely to be the same % of the population as there always has been. It’s just that we’re only now actually diagnosing it and knowing what it is, so the #'s look higher than in years past.
As for me, I got very sick and when I got over it, I had the symptoms of type 1 diabetes. I’ve been told that it was likely I had a pre-disposition to it, and was slowly losing my beta cells. Whatever virus I had, was just too much for my system to handle and was the straw that broke the camel’s back, resulting in symptoms.
I also don’t believe in any sort of conspiracy. Not only would the company that found a “cure” have a HUGE market to appeal to, but the employees have family members, friends, or even themselves with this same disease. Why would they want to withhold a cure?
When my son was 1st dx’d (2yrs old) I was told it was due to the fact that I am vegatarian and was when I was pregnate with him… I was also told kids are getting it younger because of too much hormones in meat products!
Ha! If all the vegetarian mothers had T1 kids, there’d be a lot more than there are now! Who told you that, I have to wonder. However, I do worry a lot about all the stuff that is put into meat and dairy products. Very scary indeed.
@Jim - Predisposed means that you have genes that are associated with T1. It still needs a trigger (hence the association for some with illness), which is why in identical twins, one twin can get T1 but not always both - yet same genes. Last bit of research I read, about 28 genetic variants for people of European descent have so far been identified and associated with Type 1 predisposition.
On the other hand, researchers don’t exactly know how long from disease to onset, so if a virus is the trigger, no one exactly knows when or why those antibodies start attacking the beta-cells (hence this discussion). Could be weeks, months or years! In some it’s quicker than others.
You can have a virus or bacteria and not know it. For example: years ago I had blood tests that showed I had a recent EBV virus infection (glandular fever) and I didn’t know it. Zero symptoms! Yet when my daughter had it years later, she was terribly ill and missed months of school.
There are trials now where one sibling or close relative has T1 and another sibling is tested as predisposed, and researchers are seeing what they can do to stave off T1 in the sibling that doesn’t have it. Here’s one of those trials.
Good stuff Susi.
Thank you
it was an RN for the public health department!!! How scary! She also told me my son was most likely autistic (3yrs later, he’s not) I laugh at this now but at the time I left her office in tears!!!
Been T1 since 1952 and am fortunate to still be in good health.
I had had bad case of the flu just prior to being diagnosed.
This, I realize, is not proof of anything.
The conspiracy theory is lunacy.
For those who believe in the conspiracy theory, lunacy, as used here, means you are stupid.
I live in the Niagara Region of Ontario Canada, and For some reason The southern-most section of the niagara region has the highest rate of type 1 diabetes in all of Canada. No one can explain why this is, but I think it could be an important factor in discovering why and how diabetes exists. So far I have not heard of any major studies done in the region.