Epidemiological background to diabetes.

Earlier seasonal inoidence studies indicated that juvenile diabetes is acquired mainly in the autumn and winter months, and more recent and extensive further studies conducted throughout Great Britain have confirmed these earlier findings. Studies relating the incidence of the disease to age among juveniles suggest that an initiating factor, probably viral in origin, is operative in early childhood and that after a latent period, a precipitating factor may then uncover the disease. This might explain the peak of juvenile diabetes which appears at age 11, in Britain. Studies on families in which diabetes has appeared almost simultaneously in two or more members, lends some support to the view that the disease may be precipitated by some infective process.