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Posted by klausen on 11:14:15 2004/02/28
In Reply to: same house - diabetes environment - 3 kids posted by Ed Timings
Although the tendency to develop diabetes is inherited, a genetic disposition alone is not enough to cause it, since studies of genetically identical twins with at least one type-1 diabetic sibling show that in only 50% of the cases do both twins become diabetic.
Current theory holds that in people with the right genes a variety of stresses on the immune system, especially certain viruses, may trigger it to turn on itself and destroy the pancreas. I would not be surprised if certain molds in the environment could also cause this panicked, uncontrolled response in a properly disposed immune system, and perhaps your old house has the requisite mold in the walls. It might be a useful contribution to medical science to have all the flora in your house studied and evaluated by a team of biologists, epidemiologists, diabetologists, and immunologists.
I think of this possibility especially because I have the gene for the DR25 human leucocyte antigen, which is known to be one of the factors inclining the immune system to go into an autoimmune overdrive. I had allergies starting in early childhood and developed type-1 diabetes after chicken pox when I was 14. I went along fairly well until seven years ago when I was living in an extraordinarily drafty, moldy old house in London, where I developed another, more serious autoimmune condition, vasculitis, which I think may have been sparked off by the mold. It would suggest some interesting epidemiological hypotheses if the mold in your old house turned out to be the same as in mine.
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