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- NEW YORK (Reuters
Health) - Consuming large quantities of cow's milk during childhood may
increase the risk of developing type 1 diabetes in children who are already
genetically susceptible to the disorder, results of a study suggest.
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- The team of Finnish researchers found that children who
had a sibling with diabetes were more than five times as likely to develop
the autoimmune disorder if they drank more than half a liter (about three
glasses) of cow's milk a day, compared with children who drank less milk.
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- The study findings, published in the June issue of Diabetes,
add to an ongoing debate over the role of cow's milk in the onset of type
1 diabetes.
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- ``Our study is the first prospective study to suggest
that cow's milk consumption during childhood is related to development
of clinical diabetes in siblings of children with diabetes,'' lead author
Dr. Suvi M. Virtanen with the University of Tampere, Finland, told Reuters
Health.
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- However, more studies are needed to assess the possible
interaction between genetic disease susceptibility and dietary exposures
in the development of the disease, Virtanen added.
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- While it is not clear which component of cow's milk may
increase risk of diabetes, researchers suspect that one of several proteins
may be to blame, Virtanen explained. Similarly, it is not known how cow's
milk increases the risk of type 1 diabetes, although Virtanen suspects
that it may ``program the immune system in a direction favoring an immune
attack against insulin producing cells.''
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- Type 1 diabetes is usually diagnosed in children or in
adults younger than 30. The disorder is caused by an abnormal immune reaction
that destroys the cells of the pancreas that produce insulin, the hormone
that regulates blood sugar. People with type 1 diabetes usually take life-long
insulin injections to regulate their blood sugar.
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- The investigators looked at children who consumed cow's
milk in the first year of life and followed up when children were age 3
to 19. Some children had a sibling with type 1 diabetes and were examined
for a genetic predisposition to the disorder.
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- Results show that children who developed diabetes were
more likely to have consumed at least three glasses of milk daily before
entering the study. The number of diabetics and nondiabetics who had breast-fed
for at least 2 months or had received some cow's milk before 2 months of
age did not differ, researchers found.
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- A greater number of children who developed diabetes were
genetically susceptible to the disease. Seventy-nine percent of these children
carried a particular genetic variation associated with diabetes while only
30% of those who did not develop diabetes were found to have this variation.
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- SOURCE: Diabetes 2000;49:912-917.
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