Does Cow's Milk Cause Diabetes?

In a sense, scientists already know what causes juvenile-onset diabetes, a disease that afflicts about 1.5 million Americans. For some reason, the body's immune system attacks and destroys insulin-producing cells in the pancreas. Without insulin, the body is unable to process sugar into energy. Even with daily insulin shots, diabetics run a high risk of blindness, kidney failure and heart disease. But why does the immune system go on the attack?

A report in the New England Journal of Medicine says the culprit may be cow's milk, and the process a bizarre case of mistaken identity. Doctors at the Hospital for Sick Children in Toronto found that the diabetics had a much higher than normal level of antibodies to a protein in cow's milk called bovine serum albumin; their bodies have targeted the protein as an invader to be destroyed. By a terrible coincidence, a section of this milk protein is almost identical to a protein on the surface of insulin-producing cells. When these people are sensitized to milk, the theory goes, they are also sensitized to their own cells, leading to the cells' destruction.

The link has not been proved yet, and the researchers know that genetics also plays a crucial role. So too may other environmental factors, including chemicals. But if the cow's milk connection is established -- and it will take five to 10 years of research -- eliminating milk from infants' diets might dramatically cut the incidence of this severest form of diabetes.