Is it possible for the flu shot to cause type 1 diabetes?
Based on Science
There is no evidence that the flu shot or any vaccine can cause you to develop type 1 diabetes.
Last update February 14, 2022
There is no evidence that vaccines cause type 1 diabetes.
Diabetes is a disease that affects how your body turns the sugars in your food into energy. To do this, your muscle, fat, and liver cells need insulin, a hormone made in the pancreas. Type 1 diabetes is an autoimmune disease in which the immune system attacks and destroys cells in the pancreas that produce insulin. Type 1 diabetes is most commonly diagnosed in children and young adults but can develop at any age.
Scientists have studied whether vaccines could cause type 1 diabetes. For most studies, scientists compare the percentage of people who developed diabetes after receiving a certain vaccine with the percentage of people who developed diabetes but did not receive the vaccine.
Flu shots protect against influenza viruses, which are common viruses that cause millions of people to get sick and tens of thousands of people to die from the flu each year in the United States. Getting a flu vaccine makes it less likely that you will get sick with the flu. There is no evidence that flu vaccines causes type 1 diabetes:
In a long-term study in Sweden and Finland of children identified as being at higher genetic risk for developing type 1 diabetes, no difference in the risk of developing the disease was found between children who received the vaccine to protect against the 2009 H1N1 “swine” flu and those who did not.
Similarly, a research group in Norway compared people under 30 who received the vaccine to protect against the “swine” flu with those who did not. The risk of developing type 1 diabetes did not increase after being vaccinated.
There is no evidence that routine childhood immunizations to protect against other diseases such as measles and polio cause type 1 diabetes:
A 2016 meta-analysis of 23 previous studies found no association between routine vaccinations and increased risk of developing type 1 diabetes.
A 2021 study looking at medical data for more than 500,000 U.S. children found no connection between the recommended timing for childhood immunizations and the risk of developing type 1 diabetes.
Scientists are studying what causes of type 1 diabetes.
Scientists do not know what causes the body’s immune system to attack cells in the pancreas that make insulin, but there is good evidence that genes play a role. You are more likely to develop type 1 diabetes if you have a parent or sibling with type 1 diabetes.
Scientists are also studying the environmental factors that may contribute to development of type 1 diabetes. For example:
There is limited evidence that certain viruses, such as enteroviruses, could trigger the onset of type 1 diabetes.
There is limited evidence that a person’s gut microbiome could play a role in type 1 diabetes.
There is limited evidence that high birth weight and childhood obesity can play a role in later developing type 1 diabetes.
Because of variation among people and their environments, environmental factors are challenging to study, so there is still much to be learned about how these factors may connect to the development of type 1 diabetes.
People with type 1 diabetes should get all recommended vaccines.
Diabetes can make it harder for your immune system to fight infections. For some illnesses, people with diabetes tend to get sick more often and experience worse symptoms than people without diabetes. This makes it especially important for people with diabetes to get recommended vaccines, including the flu shot.
Unless your doctor tells you otherwise, getting a recommended vaccine is better than risking the illnesses vaccines are made to prevent.
