Mud pies may ward off diabetes : Dr.Bernstein & Diabetes Forum : Active Low-Carber Forums

#1 ^

Thu, Sep-06-07, 20:18

Daryl

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Mud pies may ward off diabetes

Quote:

LET them eat dirt - or at least crawl around in it.

That is the message from a juvenile diabetes group after Australia's first national trends survey of children with type 1 diabetes showed a significant jump in cases of the disease among those aged 14 and under.

Australia already has a high incidence of type 1 diabetes in children in worldwide comparisons and the culprit may be an increasingly sterile environment.

About 6100 children aged 14 and under developed type 1 diabetes over a seven-year period, with the rate of new cases increasing significantly between 2000 and 2005 from 19 to 23 per 100,000, according to a report released today by the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare.

The report, National Diabetes Register - a statistical profile 1999-2005, profiled the 76,124 people who began using insulin to treat all types of diabetes during this period.

Type 1 diabetes accounts for 18 per cent of cases, type 2 for almost 70 per cent and gestational diabetes for 11 per cent. For type 1, 45 per cent of people registered were 14 or under.

A co-author of the report, Anne-Marie Waters, said yesterday the reason for the increase in this group was not established but there were various theories on environmental factors, such as the "hygiene hypothesis".

The CEO of the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation, Mike Wilson, had no doubt that changing environment was the key. "We know type 1 is a combination of a genetic predisposition and an environmental trigger. We know that people's genes haven't changed over this period, so it must be due to changes in the environment," he said.

"We all live really hygienic lives and we don't eat dirt or fall out of trees as often as we used to and so a person with an immune system that may be prone to malfunction may not get trained and strengthened early in life.

"The Western world, particularly Australia, the US and Scandinavia, have much higher rates of type 1 diabetes than second or third world countries.

"It reinforces the fact that the triggers for type 1 diabetes are very different from those for type 2 and addressing the so-called diabetes epidemic requires different strategies for different diseases."

A 2006 International Diabetes Federation report showed that Finland had the highest rate of type 1 with 41.4 new cases per 100,000 people a year, followed by Sweden (31.7) and Norway (27.9). Australia, with 21.8 new cases, ranked sixth, ahead of Germany (18), Singapore (2.5), Mexico (1.5) and China (0.1).

The report also showed there were 150 new cases over the seven years of insulin-treated type 2 diabetes in children 14 or under and more than 700 cases in those aged 15 to 24.

http://www.smh.com.au/news/health/m...8067332567.html

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#2 ^

Fri, Sep-07-07, 06:50

Nancy LC

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It is a popular hypothesis but not a terribly good one, IMHO. We don't live in anything close to sterile environments you only have to culture a sample of what lives in your kitchen sponges, toothbrush, etc to figure that out.

I'd put the blame on something *IN* the environment, not something not in it. We're exposed to a lot more chemical pollutants, our diet has changed significantly.

#3 ^

Fri, Sep-07-07, 18:48

NorthPeace NorthPeace is offline

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Quote:

The Western world, particularly Australia, the US and Scandinavia, have much higher rates of type 1 diabetes than second or third world countries.

These countries are also wealthier, more industrialised, and farther from the equator. I think there has been a hypothesis advanced that T1D may be caused by a problem with the immune system. That aspect is not new.

As for T2D, I have it. I made mud pies as a kid, and as and adult professional. I am a soil scientist, and perform some of my field soil tests with my mouth and tongue.