My daughter was diagnosed with type 1 in August 2003 after going into a coma. I do not recall her being sick prior to this or hardly the whole school year. I understand that a virus triggers this. My daughter and I both think that the unbelieveable amount of mold and fungus that was found in the walls, from years of water leaking from the windows inside the walls, and the crawl space under the house that was closed up for a few years. I was told the amount of mold and fungus was off the scales. We discoverd this in the proscess of getting the house for sale. We had lived in this house for 15 years and I was told that the water damage from the windows started before I bought the house. Is this the reason that my daughter developed diabetes instead of a virus setting it off? Also, there is a family in our support group that believes the same is for their daughter whom is type 1 for only a few months.

I appreciate your input about concerns of some environmental “trigger” as causing diabetes. Who told you that diabetes was “caused” by a virus? I fear that you have been misled a little bit or there has been a possible misunderstanding. While an environmental trigger or virus to cause diabetes cannot be entirely discounted, and while there has been an association, not exactly a “cause, ” between a specific virus (called “coxsackie virus”) and diabetes, by far and away, the most common etiology of type 1 diabetes actually seems to be a process whereby one’s own immune system “attacks” one’s own pancreas, thus interfering with insulin production. This is called an autoimmune process. Other human conditions that have an autoimmune basis included various thyroid conditions, celiac disease, rheumatoid arthritis, lupus, some type of Vitamin B12 deficiency states, vitiligo, and many others. These illnesses often run in families and are more common in women than in men, in general. Having one autoimmune disease should put people on the lookout for another one. Special genetic testing can see if one has the genetic profile for higher risk of autoimmune disease.

You might want to review Ask the Diabetes Team for other questions regarding the cause of diabetes and the autoimmune issues.

DS