Incidence of diabetes in children

Abstract

EDITOR,—Emma Wadsworth and colleagues report the incidence of insulin dependent diabetes in children under 5 years in the British Isles.1 Their data suggest that the incidence remained stable over four years. The use of “snapshot” years to address the question of potentially increasing incidence must have limited value, even over a large geographical area, when random variation substantially affects annual numbers. The population based Yorkshire children's diabetes register includes 1650 children and for the years 1978-90 is 97% complete.2 …