Air pollution increases diabetes risk

A new study in the US has found that air pollution and smog may increase the chances of suffering from diabetes . The research, which was published in the journal Diabetes Care, has revealed a strong link between diabetes in adults and particulate air pollution, even after adjustments are made for key risk factors, such as obesity and ethnicity.
The study, conducted at the Children’s Hospital in Bosto, examined data on pollution levels in 2004 and 2005 provided by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) during, in addition to information from Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and US Census information on the distribution of adult diabetes .
John Brownstei, who wrote the study and is an assistant professor at Children’s Hospital, said “We saw this really robust relationship looking at both EPA data and prevalence data, adjusting for pretty much any other confounding variables we could think of — obesity, exercise, ethnicity, distance to fast-food restaurants — but this one factor, pollution, remained significant.”
Brownstein highlighted the fact that even counties that were within EPA limits exhibited a significant prevalence of diabetes. Joel Zonszei, an endocrinologist at the Montefiore Medical Center in the Bronx, New York, added “They found there was a linear relationship — the higher the exposure, the bigger the relationship.”
Although there is not yet direct evidence of cause and effect, other research has suggested the link between air pollution and inflammation, and possibly a rise in insulin resistance.