Is Type 1 Diabetes Diagnosis Common in Adulthood?

Type 1 diabetes occurs when the immune system attacks and destroys the insulin-producing β-cells of the pancreas. Type 1 diabetes develops in some patients during adulthood, and as many as 40% of adults who are diagnosed with type 1 diabetes initially were misdiagnosed with type 2 diabetes (Diabetes Care 2021; 44:2589). Investigators used data from the U.S. National Health Interview Survey (from 2016–2022) to identify nearly 1000 adults with self-reported type 1 diabetes to determine their age at diagnosis.

Median age at type 1 diabetes diagnosis was 24, with more than one third of respondents receiving type 1 diabetes diagnoses at age 30 or older. Type I diabetes was diagnosed later in men than in women (median age, 27 vs. 22), and later in…