Air pollution may have caused 3.2 million new cases of type 2 diabetes cases in 2016 globally, 150,000 cases in the U.S. 8.2 million years of healthy life lost in that year.
Open access full-text of the Lancet research reportage here.
"We estimate that about 14 percent of diabetes in the world occurs because of higher levels of air pollution, that's one in seven cases," said senior study author Dr. Ziyad Al-Aly of Washington University and the VA Saint Louis Health Care System in Missouri.
"Risks exist at levels that are below what's now currently considered safe by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) in the United States and also by the World Health Organization," he told Reuters Health in a phone interview.
The tiniest form of particulate matter pollution, known as PM 2.5, is already associated with increased risk of heart disease, lung disease, kidney disease, and other noncommunicable diseases "and contributed to about 4.2 million premature deaths in 2015," the study team writes in The Lancet Planetary Health, June 29.
PM 2.5 is the mix of solid fragments and liquid droplets suspended in air that's sometimes visible to human eyes as haze.
"There is emerging evidence over the past several years that particulates, when they are small enough, they make their way through the lungs to the blood vessels," Al-Aly said. "They go to the liver, they go to the pancreas, they go to the kidneys...
More from the above-quoted article at Reuters via Medscape (Medscape is free, just have to register) or Reuters Health directly. Atlantic report via KFF here, opening paragraphs as follow:
It’s fairly well known that a bad diet, a lack of exercise, and genetics can all contribute to type 2 diabetes. But a new global study points to an additional, surprising culprit: the air pollution emitted by cars and trucks.
Though other research has shown a link between diabetes and air pollution in the past, this study is one of the largest of its kind, and it’s unique because it both is longitudinal and includes several types of controls. What’s more, it also quantifies exactly how many diabetes cases in the world are attributable to air pollution: 14 percent in 2016 alone. In the United States, it found, air pollution is responsible for 150,000 cases of diabetes.
The study, published in The Lancet Planetary Health, linked data from 1.7 million American veterans who had been followed for a median of 8.5 years with air data from the EPA and NASA. It also aggregated past international research on diabetes and air pollution to devise a model to estimate diabetes risk based on the level of pollution, and it used the Global Burden of Disease study to estimate how many years of healthy life were lost due to this air-pollution-induced diabetes. Globally, 8.2 million years of healthy life were lost in 2016 to pollution-linked diabetes, it showed…..
wik lists of air-pollution-related diseases per 2014 WHO report alone, third world as well as developed world, indoor including pollutants from outside that become concentrated and trapped indoors as well as pollutants arising indoors (heating, cooking, outgassing from materials and objects inside the home, etc)
Outdoor air pollution
Indoor air pollution
Read at that same link for related pollution health impacts.
See also diary today Sugar does not cause diabetes. And diabetes is not one disease by SkepticalRaptor, and medscape’s 2014 Becoming the Patient: Not as Easy as It Looks by Svetlana Katsnelson, MD — opening paragraphs offer some idea of the learning curve of a newly diagnosed severe case, or even any:
I felt a little pinch as the representative inserted the small needle of the insulin pump into my abdomen. Even though I am not diabetic, I was being set up with an insulin pump (filled with normal saline) as part of my endocrine fellowship training.
After the pump was in place, I tried to grasp all the information on what I needed to do and how to operate the pump. And quite frankly, I felt a little overwhelmed as I tried to learn all of the functions in a 15-minute visit. Along with various other functions, I was shown how to input the amount of carbohydrates I would be eating so my pump would bolus the appropriate amount of "insulin." The representative also showed me how to check a fingerstick glucose level with the glucometer.
"Ouch," my brain screamed as I stuck my finger for the first time .... Although I remind my patients to check their fingerstick glucose levels, often up to 4 times a day, I had never done it myself and now humbly understand how truly painful it is. As I left to go home and start managing myself, I realized that this was not going to be easy.
I first became a noncompliant patient when I got home and grabbed an apple from the fridge. I remembered as I chewed my last bite that I forgot to enter the carbohydrates for the apple into the insulin pump.
"Well, next time I will be better," I promised myself. Later that night, I [proudly] remembered to enter the carbohydrates for my dinner. About an hour later, I sat down at my desk and set up to check my fingerstick glucose. My face twisted as I felt the painful prick of the lancet, and I realized that I needed to change my pricking spot because the side of my finger was starting to feel a bit sore.
After showering that night, I almost forget to reconnect my pump. I went to bed with the insulin pump and felt myself shifting in bed because I was not used to having anything attached to my body. The next morning, after I woke up, I grouchily reminded myself that I needed to check my fingerstick glucose before I ate. I again cursed the lancet as it pricked me, and I realized that I did not want to keep doing this. I just wanted to enjoy my day without these unpleasant interruptions.
As I walked into the hospital, I grabbed a breakfast bar from my bag and quickly ate it. It was not until I had to check my fingerstick glucose before lunch that I remembered that I never gave the insulin bolus for the bar. I then rushed to our conference room, with the goal of getting there about 10 minutes before my colleagues so that I could check my glucose before our session started. I was glad to find the room empty because I certainly did not want a repeat of when I had checked my glucose in the cafeteria and received several stares from strangers. In fact, I now found myself having to budget extra time into my day, not only to not check my fingersticks but also to find a place where I had privacy.
The rest of my week was filled with constant failures on my part...