So why do children get Type 1 Diabetes?
Researchers have been trying to answer this question for decades, and we still don't clearly
understand what causes the disease.
Hi my name is Ruth, I'm the mum of three children.
Faith, aged 10.
Ethan, aged 8, and Joshua, aged 5.
When Faith was 20 months, she was diagnosed with Type 1 Diabetes.
Ethan was diagnosed at age 4.
Joshua doesn't have Type 1 Diabetes.
It was a big shock to have two children with Type 1 Diabetes.
There isn't any history in our family of Type 1 Diabetes, either on my side or my husbands.
It's just one of those things that's happened.
At time's it's quite hard, especially when you go through situations where you do blame
yourself a lot.
When they first got diagnosed you wonder what the reasons are...Why? What did I do wrong?
Could I have helped this in any form?
But there isn't any answer and they do say there's nothing that we could have done to prevent it.
It's not just about genes.
That much we do know.
What I'd say to the parents is that even if they were to pass on the genetic risk of the
disease, it's not a forgone conclusion that their child will get the disease.
"Right, time to do your test guys."
"Ok?"
There's a lot of research going into trying to understand what causes childhood Type 1
Diabetes, and how best to prevent the disease.
Here at the Telethon Kids Institute we have a dedicated diabetes research team, researching
a variety of different angles of how we can understand this disease better to improve
the chances of children not developing the disease in the future.
"Ok what's your level Ethan?"
"10 point 3."
"So it's 10 point 3?"
"That's great, ok great."
Mothers, fathers, and babies can all be screened to see if they have the high risk genes of
the disease.
However even if they are found to have high risk genes for Type 1 Diabetes, this does
not necessarily mean that they will develop the disease.
With Faith, the doctors did say that when she was diagnosed with Type 1, that it could
be related to the autoimmunity involved with the Downs syndrome.
For Josh, he hasn't been tested.
There's no point in getting hung up on the "what could be's".
I think that the best thing to do is to live life to the full and enjoy it, and if it
happens you deal with it.
If your father has Type 1 Diabetes the risk of the child having Type 1 Diabetes is actually higher
than if the child's mother has Type 1 Diabetes.
But we don't know why that's the case.
As we don't understand what causes Type 1 Diabetes yet, there isn't anything that can
be done to reduce the risk of the child from developing Type 1 Diabetes.
Hopes for research is obviously for a cure, but mainly as well is helping them to live
a normal life.
There's nothing you can do about it, you just get on with life - live it to the full, and
with the added technology of today and the advances of research, it makes our lives easier
day by day.
They love life.
It doesn't stop them.
They do everything their friends do.
Sleepovers, out playing games.
Pumps are fantastic, technology is fantastic, and it can be managed.