posted 01/15/03
An epidemic of type 1 diabetes in
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, in 1993
may have been triggered by a
measles epidemic.
Researchers
at the University of Pennsylvania and the Children's
Hospital of Philadelphia identified a
total of 209 cases from 1990 to
1994, with an overall age-adjusted
rate in Philadelphia of 13.3 cases of type 1 diabetes per 100,000 children
per year. The overall incidence of type
1 in Philadelphia is about the same
as that in other diabetes
registries in the United States, the researchers
note.
A jump in the
incidence of type 1 (32 cases)
occurred between January and June
1993, approximately two years after a measles
epidemic in 1991. The study contends
that the cases of type 1 may have
developed when the measles virus
triggered an autoimmune attack on the
insulin-producing beta cells of ill
children.
The highest rate of type I by race was in the Hispanic population-in Philadelphia, primarily Puerto Ricans-with an incidence rate of 15.5 per 100,000 children. There also was a marked increase in type 1 diabetes among African-American children, which the researchers speculate might have partly resulted from misclassification of cases that actually involve type 2.
Source: Diabetes In Control Dot Com: Diabetes
Care, November 2002
January 2003 News Article Index
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