BOSTON -- Type 1 and type 2 diabetes cases are on the rise in the United States. Type 2 is often associated with dietary factors and obesity, while type 1, the rarer form of diabetes, is often hereditary. But many children now being diagnosed with type 1 have no family history.

NewsCenter 5's Liz Brunner looked into the mystery of this potentially fatal disease becoming uncomfortably common in the suburbs.

Samantha Zolak is just 4 years old, but she is old enough to know the daily ritual of checking her blood sugar count will save her life.

Walker Allen, 2, endures 10 finger pricks a day and shots every few hours.

Both of these children, and numerous other children, are all too familiar with the needles and blood counts. Many of them live in the western suburbs of Boston, in some cases within miles of each other, and they all have type 1 diabetes, an incurable disease.

Former Patriots quarterback Scott Zolak and his wife, Amy, said they were floored and shocked when their daughter Samantha was diagnosed last November because there was no history of the disease in their family.

Scott Zolak said there are actually three cases of type 1 in their small neighborhood in Wrentham.

Boston Celtics star Ray Allen and his wife Shannon's son, Walker, was diagnosed last summer during game 6 of the NBA finals and said there are 11 cases of the disease within a mile-and-a-half radius of their home in Wellesley.

Suzanne Condon, director of the Environmental Bureau for the Massachusetts Department of Public Health, said not only does Massachusetts have much higher rates of type 1 diabetes, but she is seeing the numbers rise.

"You do see clusters of disease," Condon said. "We see cancer clusters frequently, and we investigates those."

Condon's 13 years of detective work linked contaminated drinking water to leukemia clusters in Woburn, a story that was told in the movie "A Civil Action."

Condon is now investigating cases of type 1 diabetes in three MetroWest communities. It is the first and only survey of its kind in the country.

Condon's early data shows at least six children in Weston have type 1, 17 in Wellesley and 28 in Newton -- and those numbers only represent children between kindergarten and eighth grade.

Condon said that type 1 diabetes, unlike type 2, is considered an autoimmune disease, and that there is increasing evidence in the scientific literature to suggest that autoimmune diseases may be impacted by environmental exposures.

For the Zolaks, the Allens and other families, there are many questions.

"Is there something in the well water, in the environment?" Amy Zolak asked.

That's something Condon is looking into, along with whether or not it is coincidence that individuals live in the same place with different risk factors.

A local support group formed by a Weston mom, Ann Marie Kreft, meets monthly to share what they're learning about the disease, how to cope and if they can help investigators. Kreft's amateur detective work first linked many of these cases in the suburbs and she shared all of that information with Condon.

"I'm a firm believer in looking into all these factors," Condon said. "Just because it's not in the literature today doesn't mean it won't be a decade from now."