JDRF - Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation

Research released by the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare indicate that an average of 2100 Australians are diagnosed with type 1 diabetes each year, a large proportion of which are children aged between 0-14 years.

Australia has one of the highest incidences of type 1 diabetes in the world for reasons that are currently unknown – but with 9 in 10 people with type 1 having no apparent family connection to the disease, scientists strongly believe in the involvement of an unidentified environmental trigger.

According to JDRF Head of Research Development, Dr Dorota Pawlak, a number of suspects have been scrutinised including early exposure to cows milk, gut bacteria, viral infection and vitamin D levels.

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Put simply, the hygiene hypothesis refers to the idea that our decreasing interaction with infectious bugs and germs may leave result in some people becoming more susceptible to autoimmune attacks. As the term suggests, it is a hypothesis or idea that has been investigated by diabetes researchers since the early 1990’s.

Over time, scientists have broken the hypothesis down into two primary parts. The first involves our declining relationships with certain types of bacteria. A nice big colony of friendly gut bacteria helps keep our immune system in check. As our diets and lifestyles change, we are losing our healthy tummies and increasing our risk of developing autoimmune diseases.

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