Are there any associated risk factors between juvenile asthma and juvenile diabetes?
Yes. Juvenile diabetes most often is caused by an autoimmune response (the body attacks it’s own Beta cells in the pancreas that produce insulin). Asthma in childhood can also be an overactive autoimmune response by the body ,triggered by allergens. There is a relationship between the two disorders (both can be of autoimmune origin). Having childhood asthma (that is, an inappropriate immune response to an allergen) can predispose a person to have a second autoimmune response in the body (as in autoimmune Type I diabetes). So it is a risk factor, but NOT a certainty that if you have juvenile asthma you will also develop juvenile diabetes.
