Researchers of a new study found that having children lowers the risk of death for patients with type 1 diabetes. This statement was found to be truer for men than women.
Previous studies have linked type 1 diabetes to higher mortality. Studies have also linked higher mortality to men and women who don't have any offspring. They also found that people with childhood-onset type 1 diabetes have fewer offsprings than people without the disease.
In a new study, researchers from the University of Helsinki, Finland, and National Institute for Health and Welfare, Helsinki, examined the cause of death and mortality rate among childhood-onset type 1 diabetes and tried to understand how having children or being childless affects this mortality rate.
For the study, researchers examined 5,162 people who were diagnosed with diabetes at 17 years of age or under during 1965-1979 and placed on insulin at diagnosis. Of these participants 45 percent were women. Two non-diabetic control persons for each person in the DERI cohort were selected from the database of the national Social Insurance Institution, matched for the year of birth, geographical birth region and gender.
The patients were followed up till the end of 2010 during which period 1,025 people with diabetes and 497 people without diabetes died. All-cause mortality (total death rate, irrespective of the disease) was three times higher among men with diabetes than men in the controlled group. Among women, this number was five times higher among women with diabetes than women in the controlled group. Over all, in both groups, all-cause mortality was higher among men than women. However, there was a smaller difference in mortality among men and women in the diabetes group than in the controlled group.
Researchers then went on to look at the offspring factor. They divided the patients into four groups - childless, one child, two children and three or more children. Researchers found the more children a person with diabetes had, the lower was his or her mortality. This statement was truer for women than men.
"The beneficial effect of having offspring on mortality was observed. It was, however, significantly smaller among men with diabetes than among men in the control group. In women, having offspring was associated with lower mortality in a similar way regardless of the diabetes status," Dr Lena Sjöberg, lead author of the study said. "One possible reason for this gender difference is that women with type 1 diabetes are trained and well motivated to achieve better metabolic control during pregnancy and that this motivation may persist also post partum."
"One of the limitations of a register study is that you don´t know who have chosen to remain childless or to have fewer children than desired, and whether those with diabetes have done so specifically because of their disease. Partly, the differences in mortality between childless persons and persons with children are probably due to the fact that those with serious health problems choose not to have children," she concluded.
