I have been trying to find information on type 1 diabetes statistics in the U.S. and have been unable to find any information. I have found statistics that show that is more prevalent in the fall and winter months but no actual numbers. We often hear so much about the recent epidemic of type 2 and I wonder if type 1 is also on the rise.

There are thousands of articles and also many textbook chapters on this topic. You can go to PubMed and search epidemiology, type 1 diabetes and get some of these articles, if you are interested in specifics. There is also a chapter on epidemiology of type 1 diabetes in children and adolescents in my own textbook (Brink and Serban, Pediatric and Adolescent Diabetes) that is available at the Harvard Countway Library. It probably could be obtained via interlibrary loan. Also, the ADA, JDRF, and CWD web sites have such information.

The short answer to your question is that type 1 diabetes is also on the rise, for unknown reasons. All autoimmune medical disorders are similarly increasing, so there is some as yet unspecified environmental factor likely at play since genetics have not changed in this same short period of time. Type 1 diabetes is increasing in the U.S. and Canada, all of Eastern and Western Europe, as well as Japan, Australia, New Zealand and the Middle East. A lot of this increase occurred in younger children the past twenty years. There is also some speculation that the rise in obesity is accelerating the rise in type 1 diabetes as well. This is called the accelerator hypothesis proposed by colleagues in the U.K.

SB