**4. Gender differences**

Although most autoimmune diseases are more common in females, there appears to be no gender difference in the overall incidence of childhood T1DM [11].

However, a gender influence on the age of onset has been reported, in select populations. Some data reported from Europe suggest a female predominance in lower risk populations, and slight male excess in the high risk groups [3]. Furthermore many reports showed that older male adults of European origin (≥15 to 40 years of age) are more likely to develop T1DM than females of similar age and geographic location with an approximate 3:2 male to female ratio [28-30]. The same 3:2 male to female ratio also was reported in children younger than 6 years of age in an observational study from Boston [31]. Based on our data it seems that more males develop T1DM at younger age, whereas female predominate during the peripubertal period as shown in figure 3.
