Does type 1 diabetes only occur in childhood?

Does type 1 diabetes only occur in childhood?

Anne Peters, MD, FACP, CDE (Professor and Director of Clinical Diabetes Programs, USC Keck School of Medicine) gives expert video advice on: What causes type 2 diabetes?; Does type 1 diabetes only occur in childhood?; Is one type of diabetes worse than the other? and more...

Type 1 diabetes means that the body's immune system has attacked the insulin producing cells in the pancreas, called the beta cells, and basically rendered them killed; they're destroyed. We used to think that type 1 diabetes just happened in children, but we now know that it happens at any age. We've seen babies as young as just a couple weeks old getting type 1 diabetes, and my oldest patient with type 1 diabetes is 94 years old, so it really fits across the age spectrums. Type 1 diabetes is still probably more common in childhood, but certainly anyone, at any age, can develop type 1 diabetes.