Camille Moreau / Photo credits: PEAKSTOCK / SCIENCE PHOTO LIBRAR / LDA / SCIENCE PHOTO LIBRARY VIA AFP
On the occasion of World Diabetes Day, which takes place every year on November 14, Europe 1 looks back at an alarming figure. According to Inserm, the number of patients under the age of five with type 1 diabetes has tripled in 15 years.
November 14 marks World Diabetes Day. In France, 300,000 people are affected by type 1 diabetes, an autoimmune disease which requires a daily insulin injection. This pathology has been on a serious increase in recent years and affects increasingly younger children. How can this increase be explained?
Food quality in question?
According to Inserm, the number of people with type 1 diabetes has increased by 4% per year for around twenty years. But even more worrying, in 15 years, young patients under the age of five have tripled.
“In the occurrence of these immune diseases, there are genetic factors but there are also probably environmental factors. We ask ourselves the question of the link of poorer food quality which could promote pancreatic dysfunction and then the third element, probably endocrine disruptors which will modify the action of the immune system and cause dysfunction in the body”, explains Doctor Emmanuelle Lecornet Sokol, diabetologist.
The first signals to spot
Type 1 diabetes is more virulent in children than adults, warn researchers. It must therefore be taken care of very early, from the first signals such as intense thirst, a more frequent urge to urinate and sudden weight loss.