The number of Danish children suffering from type-1 diabetes has increased by 57 percent over the past 10 years, according to the national diabetes register.
Healthcare professionals have expressed particular concern because the majority of these new cases are young children. Among the under-five age group, there has been a 100 percent increase in the occurrence of type-1 diabetes over the past decade.
Experts in the field of diabetes research have been unable to provide an immediate explanation for the phenomenon.
Professor Allan Flyvbjerg, the president of the national diabetes association, believes the disease has got out of control.
‘We know how to treat the disease but unfortunately we don’t know how to prevent it,’ he told B.T. newspaper.
Just 10 years ago approximately 2,000 young people aged 19 years and below were diagnosed as having type-1 diabetes. Today that figure is around 3,200.
Type-1 diabetes is not hereditary and, in contrast to type-2 diabetes, has nothing to do with a person’s lifestyle. The disease causes an elevated blood sugar level and must be treated with insulin several times a day.
Flyvbjerg said the experts’ best guess at present is that the disease is caused by an external source in the environment, such as a pollutant, virus, infection or possibly a lack of vitamin D.
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