Wake Forest University School of Medicine served as the coordinating center of the multi-site study, which was launched in 2000 and supported by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the National Institutes of Health.
The research team identified more than 18,000 children and young people from infants to 19 years of age with a physician diagnosis of Type 1 diabetes and more than 5,200 young people between the ages of 10 and 19 with Type 2 diabetes at five centers in the U.S.
The rates of increase were also higher among racial and ethnic groups than among non-Hispanic white children.
Possible explanations for this seasonality include the fluctuation in daylight hours, lower levels of vitamin D and an increase in viral infections.