A new study from Sweden shows that growing up in the countryside during the early years of life may raise the risk of developing type 1 diabetes.
The research will be presented at the annual meeting of the European Association for the Study of Diabetes (EASD) in Vienna, Austria.
The study was led by Samy Sebraoui and Professor Soffia Gudbjornsdottir at the University of Gothenburg.
Type 1 diabetes is a serious disease that often starts in childhood. It happens when the body’s own immune system mistakenly attacks the cells in the pancreas that make insulin.
Insulin is a hormone that helps the body control the level of sugar in the blood. Without insulin, sugar builds up in the blood, which can lead to many health problems. People with type 1 diabetes usually need to take insulin for the rest of their lives.
Sweden has one of the highest rates of type 1 diabetes in the world. The researchers wanted to find out if where a person lives—such as a city or the countryside—affects their risk of getting this disease.
They looked at all people in Sweden diagnosed with type 1 diabetes from 2005 to 2022, focusing on those aged 0 to 30 years. They collected information on where each person had lived from birth until they were diagnosed. This allowed them to track changes in location over time.
The study found over 21,000 people diagnosed with type 1 diabetes. More than half were boys, and most were diagnosed before turning 18. On average, the age at diagnosis was about 13.6 years. A quarter of the patients had moved to a new area between birth and diagnosis.
When the researchers looked at where people were living at the time they were diagnosed, they found four areas in central Sweden where the risk was up to 80% higher than expected. All these high-risk areas were in the countryside.
No high-risk areas were found in big cities. In fact, cities like Stockholm, Gothenburg, and Malmö showed much lower risk—between 20% and 50% below the national average.
The researchers then looked at where people lived during their first five years of life. This revealed even more striking results. Eleven high-risk areas were all in rural parts of the country, especially in the north.
In these places, the risk of developing type 1 diabetes was up to 2.7 times higher than the national average. On the other hand, 15 low-risk areas were found, all in cities. The lowest risk was in the southern city of Växjö, where the risk was 88% lower than the national average.
The researchers also looked at the kind of land in high- and low-risk areas. They found that high-risk areas had more forests and farmland. Low-risk areas had more open and city land. This suggests that the environment plays a role in the risk of developing type 1 diabetes, especially during the early years of life.
The team believes that something in the rural environment could be raising the risk. One idea is that people in the countryside may be more exposed to things like pesticides or allergens.
Another theory is that city children are exposed to more viruses early in life, which might help their immune systems develop in a way that protects them from diseases like type 1 diabetes.
This study offers new insight into how the environment may influence the risk of type 1 diabetes. It shows a clear pattern: living in rural areas, especially during the first five years of life, may increase the risk, while growing up in cities may lower it. The researchers say more work is needed to understand what specific factors in the environment are involved.
In summary, this large Swedish study found that children who live in the countryside during their early years are more likely to develop type 1 diabetes than those who grow up in cities.
The results were surprising and highlight the need to better understand how different environments affect our health. Future studies will look deeper into these environmental factors and how they influence the risk of disease.
If you care about diabetes, please read studies that MIND diet may reduce risk of vision loss disease, and Vitamin D could benefit people with diabetic neuropathic pain.
For more information about diabetes, please see recent studies that Vitamin E could help reduce blood sugar and insulin resistance in diabetes, and results showing eating eggs in a healthy diet may reduce risks of diabetes, high blood pressure.
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