July 3, 2003
Diagnosis and Symptoms
Question from Florida, USA:
I have two cousins (brothers) who married sisters. Each has one son (One son is 18 and the other is 20), and both sons have just recently been diagnosed with type 1 diabetes. (One son did not know he had it until he went into a diabetic shock.) None can find a relative who has diabetes on either side of the family. Could there be a connection here?.
Answer:
The most common form of diabetes in young people is due to a disorder of the immune system which is determined partly by genetics and partly by some environmental factor which we don’t yet understand. Most new onset cases of this kind of diabetes do not show any family history. It is of course not surprising that if two brothers marry two sisters there would be commonality in the genetic background of their offspring, leading as it did in this case to type 1 diabetes in both families.
DOB
