April 26, 2000
Research: Causes and Prevention
Question from Detroit, Michigan, USA:
I am 31 and my husband is 30. He has been a diabetic for eleven years. He has told me that he became a diabetic because he had strep throat in college and it went untreated for so long that the strep virus destroyed his pancreas. We recently had a baby boy about 4 months ago. I would like to know does taking Humulin N and Humulin R have long term side effects on his sperm? Our child has had some minor problems and I am wondering could this be related. I am also curious about the likelihood that my son will have diabetes. The other people who have diabetes are his maternal great uncle, paternal grandmother and grandfather. There is no diabetes in my family. My husband is not a very vigilant diabetic and has been blessed with good health now, but will need to clean up his act in the future.
Answer:
If your husband has Type 1A autoimmune Diabetes then the chances of your son developing the same kind of diabetes is somewhere around 5%: it is a little higher if the father is the diabetic and a little lower if it is the mother. If this was the case it is very improbable that it was caused by a strep throat although the stress of that infection may have triggered the start of insulin dependance in someone whose insulin producing capacity was already over 90% destroyed. It is very unlikely that any minor problems that your son has can be directly related to the insulin that his father has been taking.
DOB
