What Causes Type 1 Diabetes?

Genetic Abnormalities

Researchers have found at least 18 genetic locations that are related to type 1 diabetes. They appear to involve abnormal interactions among normal genes, mostly those known as class I and II major histocompatibility genes, which affect the immune response. The odds of inheriting the disease, however, are only 10% if a first degree relative has diabetes, and even in identical twins, one twin has only a 33% chance of having diabetes if the other has it.

Children are more likely to inherit the disease from a father with type 1 diabetes than from a mother with the disorder. Genetic factors, however, cannot fully explain the development of diabetes. Over the past 30 years, a major increase in the incidence of type 1 diabetes has been reported in certain European countries, and the incidence has nearly tripled in the Northeastern US. If genetic factors were the only cause of type 1 diabetes, such an increase in cases would take at least 400 years.

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