What causes type 1 diabetes?

What causes type 1 diabetes?

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 is probably caused by something genetic, meaning there's something in one's background that makes one at risk. We're looking for the kinds of genes that cause Type 1 diabetes. But then something has to happen that triggers the autoimmune response. So we think it's a chemical, we think it's in the environment, but we don't know what. But we know that, for instance, you can have an identical twin with the same genes you do and not everyone is going to get Type 1 diabetes. Less than half will end up getting Type 1, because it's some environmental trigger.