The following article from today's Daily Telegraph (Sydney Australia) has relevance to Paleofood,
as cow's milk has been a recent introduction to the diet of Homo sapiens and domestication of
livestock and urbanisation of humans has given us exposures to viruses outside that which our
species is evolutionarily accustomed to.
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Diabetes epidemic hits NSW
By JANELLE MILES
September 05, 2005

VIRUSES and early introduction of milk in diets are partly to blame for NSW rates of insulin-
dependant diabetes in children rivalling the world's worst levels.
Research has revealed in the 12 years to 2002 there were 3260 new cases of type 1 diabetes in
NSW children under 15, an increase of 2.8 per cent a year.

The "very high" incidence of the condition puts NSW on par with Finland, Canada, Norway,
Aberdeen in Scotland and Western Australia.

Annual rates in Finland were 350 times those in China, according to the research published in the
latest Medical Journal of Australia.

Those in NSW were around 200 times China's rates.

Paediatric endocrinologist Maria Craig and colleagues from the Children's Hospital at Westmead
believe the increase is more likely to be related to environmental factors than changes in the
genetic susceptibility in the population.

They speculates a range of environmental triggers were to blame – viruses, the early introduction
of cow's milk in the diet and higher rates of insulin resistance related to overweight and obesity.

Viruses have been associated with the onset of juvenile diabetes and reduced maternal immunity
to viruses have been suggested as a cause of the rising incidence.

"In many of the populations with the highest incidence of type 1 diabetes, childhood obesity is
also on the rise and the prevalence of weight problems is increasing in children at onset of type 1
diabetes," the researchers wrote.

They said prospective studies in Australia investigating the role of cow's milk protein and viruses
as early triggers of autoimmunity may provide insights into the effect of environmental factors on
diabetes incidence.

The authors said the increase was only significant in the first half of the 1990s, plateauing
between 1997 and 2002. But they believed the recent plateau represented a temporary variation.

"The ongoing collection of epidemiological data in NSW will demonstrate whether the recently
observed plateau is . . . short-term," the researchers wrote.

Original at: http://dailytelegraph.news.com.au/story/0,20281,16489236-5001021,00.html
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Keith