Possible dietary factors in the induction of diabetes and its inheritance in man, with studies in mice.

My interest in this general subject started in 1981 when I had a telephone call from Iceland from a doctor there who had worked with me in the Aberdeen Diabetic Clinic for 1.5 years. Since returning to Iceland, where he was responsible for the Diabetic Service he had completed a meticulous survey of all the insulin-dependent patients in the population of just under 0.25 million people. On analysing the data he came upon an unexpected and highly significant finding. This was that a great preponderance of the boys who developed diabetes before their fifteenth birthday were born in the month of October. The statistical significance of this finding turned out to be P<0-00001 (Helgason & Jonasson, 1981; Fig. 1).