The Hjelt Institute in Finland recently completed and published a cohort study of 2,307 women and 2,819 men with type 1 diabetes. The purpose of the study was to determine the fertility outcome of patients living with child-onset diabetes. The data used for the cohort was collected a part of the National Population Register. Diagnosis of diabetes was delivered between 1965 and 1979. All patients were no older than 17 at the time of diagnosis. Several factors, including age at time of diagnosis were taken into consideration when reporting final conclusions.
All participants experienced a reduced number of live births compared to peers never diagnosed with diabetes, but earlier cohorts displayed different results than later cohorts. According to the data collected, earlier cohorts showed women experienced fewer live births compared with later cohorts. Researchers did not hypothesize on possible reasons for the difference, but did note the difference as a birth cohort effect.
Source: Sjöberg L, Pitkäniemi J, Haapala L, Kaaja R, Tuomilehto J. Fertility in people with childhood-onset type 1 diabetes. Diabetologia. 2012 Sep 27.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23011355
