Having Other Immune Abnormalities
The incidence of type 1 is higher than average among people with other autoimmune diseases, including Grave's disease, Hashimoto's thyroiditis (a form of hypothyroidism), Addison's disease, multiple sclerosis (MS), and pernicious anemia. Research has raised the possibility that all autoimmune diseases share a common genetic basis. A 2001 study found, for example, that the T-cell immune factors in type 1 diabetes target the same self-antigens as in multiple sclerosis (MS). Both diseases have been associated with cow's milk protein. Many questions are unanswered, however. It is not known why the diseases develop in different locations to cause separate disorders or why some autoimmune events occur in everyone but not everyone develops an autoimmune disease.
Ethnicity
There is a very wide variation in incidence of type 1 among population groups. Type 1 diabetes appears to be most common in people of northern European descent and in specific Mediterranean groups (such as Sardinians). It is less common among Asians and African Americans. Still, African Americans with type 1 diabetes are 50% more likely to die from it than Caucasians, mostly due to lower-quality health care.
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