Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Kelly on April 16, 2012 at 3:06pm

Thanks:)

• ▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by gigem99 on April 16, 2012 at 11:42am

There is an excellent book that came out a few years ago by Dan Hurley called 'Diabetes Rising'. He examines why there is such a dramatic rise in the incidence of diabetes - not just type 2, but also type 1.

He postulates on 4 different theories, and the first one he lists is cows milk. Basically, what he said was: "...recent studies in animals suggesting that bovine serum albumin is the protein in cow's milk responsible for triggering an autoimmune response...". That's a quote from an article in the New England Journal of Medicine.

Towards the end of the book, if I recall correctly, he said something to the effect that if he had a young child, he would only feed him/her soy milk.

So, I doubt seriously that giving your daughter soy forumula caused the type 1 dx.

I am glad to hear she is doing well. You parents are my heroes!

Tom

• ▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by Kelly on April 16, 2012 at 2:45pm

thanks tom, i'll look for that. And thanks for the parent comment. my daughter is MY hero:)

• ▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by KCCO on April 16, 2012 at 1:20pm

I don't have kids so I don't know this--is soy formula made from GMO soy? I know most of the soy that we eat is GMO. But I think that could be another factor at play as well. If its bad for adults, surely its bad for developing newborns!

• ▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by Natalie ._c- on April 16, 2012 at 5:56pm

But remember that people have been eating soy, non-GMO, for millennia, and T1 certainly existed long, long before the GMO crops were created. So I tend not to believe that it's the GMO soy that causes T1. And I haven't heard or seen any convincing evidence that it's so bad for anyone, except for food faddists and hysteria mongers.

I would love to see the root cause that triggers the genes for T1 discovered, and likely it will be in a surprising place. But I really doubt it's going to be in food.

• ▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by momwith3 on April 16, 2012 at 6:25pm

I had the same issues with my son and so I also put my son on isomel and he is now type 1 but I also have a daughter who is type one and she was only breastfed. So I cannot be of much help as I have one of each

• ▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by garidan on April 16, 2012 at 6:46pm

You are of much help: you show how soy is uninfluent ...

• ▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by MegaMinxX on April 16, 2012 at 7:19pm

I've had T1D since age 5, and my mother told me she was only able to breast feed me for about 6 weeks, due to a breast infection. But infant soy milk wasn't even around when I was born!.
It was a while ago, but she had seen some article suggesting a possible link, and I think mentioned the theory that breast milk provided better for support the infant's immune system. It hinted that with breast milk, I might have been 'more resistant' when I was later 'attacked' by whatever the trigger was.

I have many siblings, all who were breast fed longer, none with T1D. So I know my Mom has always wondered. But for me, it's just how it is.

• ▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by momwith3 on April 16, 2012 at 7:25pm

As I posted earlier, I have two children with T1. One I could only breastfeed for three weeks and he became diabetic at ten and I was able to breastfeed my daughter for seven months and she was diagnosed at seven. I also have another child who I breastfed for seven months and he is not diabetic. So I am not sure it makes a difference

• ▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by Jack's Mom on May 13, 2012 at 11:28am

My son got a mix of breast milk and soy formula for the first three months, and then exclusive soy formula after that. He was diagnosed at the age of 1, with no family history on either side, and the Mommy guilt was oppressive. Should he have gotten more breast milk? Did vaccines trigger? Soy formula? Not enough vitamin D / sunlight? Hand foot and mouth virus trigger? You can find a study pointing to all of these. However, I was concerned about soy formula so I contacted the head researcher / doctor at the Univ of Arkansas which is doing a 20 year study of different formulas across 400 children. They just finished the first 10 year portion and found no ill effects from soy formula, and no link at all to type 1 diabetes. I spoke to him personally, and he told me to stop reading the Internet.

I am a bit frustrated that researchers seem to be focusing exclusively on "environmental triggers" which means we play the blame game constantly. My son was diagnosed two months after a monster growth spurt, and it seems diagnosis' fall a lot into that category (3 yr old, 10 yr old, etc). I know there is the whole "identical twin" theory to disprove that, but I have identical twin brothers. Even though they are identical, I have always been able to tell them apart (it's subtle, but there) and they are very different people (why does one get severely depressed and the other never does?) Finally, the rise could be attributed to gene pools being more vastly distributed than they were 30,40,50 years ago. My husband is from Holland, and even though we have no history we somehow shuffled our genes to produce an amazing child that just happens to have T1D.

If we have to blame a trigger, they should look at possible internal ones too. It seems there is still so much to learn about T1D.

• ▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by Natalie ._c- on May 15, 2012 at 3:11pm

First things first. Drop the mommy guilt. You did NOTHING wrong, and because no one really knows what triggers the T1 genes, there is NO way you could have prevented it. NONE of the various proposed triggers have actually panned out, and if your sweet one has the genes, then something would most likely have triggered it -- if not now, then later. Think about the number of T1s who are diagnosed during childhood, puberty and adulthood. It CAN'T be cows milk, soy milk or any other simple baby diet, because otherwise they would have all been diagnosed at about the same age.

It is also unlikely that these simple things are the trigger, because they would have been easily discovered and the results would have been crystal clear. That has not happened. So the trigger is likely something that is not present at all times and which the person is vulnerable to. It could even be different things for different people, but as yet there is no way to identify any of this.

So just because the trigger or triggers are unidentified, doesn't mean you should suffer guilt when there is NO way you could possibly have prevented this, and also means that there is a lot of scientific work ahead to try to figure the issue out. You simply cannot control the environment in which we ALL live, and neither could the parents of all the children who died and are dying of T1 when insulin was not available. Your baby happened to have the genes, and that's that. NO guilt, NO blame, he was just meant to be the adorable child he is, regardless of whatever genes he has.

I understand, because I have T1 myself, just how agonizing it must be to you to have to care for his diabetes, but NO guilt! OK?

• ▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by Jack's Mom on May 18, 2012 at 12:24pm

OK! Your words means so much, thank you!!!!

• ▶ Reply

• ‹ Previous
• 1
• 2
• 3
• Next ›
• Page