Diabetes 101
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What Causes Type 1 Diabetes?
Doctors don't fully understand what causes type 1 diabetes, although people
probably inherit the tendency to develop it through genes from their parents.
But inheriting genes hasn’t been proven to be enough to cause a person to
actually develop the disease.
Type 1 diabetes appears to occur when something in the environment -- a toxin or a virus (but doctors aren't sure) -- triggers the immune system to mistakenly attack the pancreas and destroy the beta cells of the pancreas to the point where they can no longer produce sufficient insulin to maintain healthy blood glucose levels.
No one really knows what causes type 1 diabetes, but we do know that:
- There is nothing you could have done to prevent type 1 diabetes, even if you had been to see the doctor sooner.
- Your body's defense system may attack your insulin-making cells by mistake, but we don't know why.
- People usually find out they have type 1 diabetes before the age of 30, most often in childhood or during their teens.
- It is not caused by eating too much sugar.