--be caused by traumatic injury, or even constant chronic strain.

It is primarily a compressive neuropathy after all, with the lateral femoral cutaneous nerve being compressed somewhere along its length, usually in the narrow space that if passes through on its way through the pelvis.

Certainly it's more common in diabetics, but all compressive neuropathies are more common in such people, as the type of microvscular damage of diabetes predisposes one to become symptomatic when nerves are compressed, due to the "double crush" phenomenon.

Take a look at:

http://www.emedicine.com/pmr/topic76.htm

http://www.tifaq.org/archive/double-crush.txt