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New Study pollutants associated with diabetes
NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - People with higher levels of pesticides and other contaminants in blood would be more likely to develop type 2 diabetes, suggests a study of older adults in Sweden.
The findings add to growing evidence that these chemicals cause changes in the body that lead to diabetes, but could not prove a cause and effect.
Together, the data suggest that there is something more associated with the disease of blood sugar and eating too much and not exercising enough, said Dr. David Carpenter, director of the Institute for Health and the Environment at the University of Albany.
Pollutants, including pesticides and polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) are found in meat and fatty fish.
Some, used in paints, plastics and electrical equipment manufacturing, are regulated and no longer used in several countries.
Anyway, "exposure to these substances in the general pollution is acting because they have contaminated our food chain," said study author Dr. Duk-Hee Lee, Kyungpook National University in South Korea.
Lee's team collected 725 older adults without diabetes in Sweden, which drew blood samples to measure levels of pollutants and followed them for five years.
In that period were diagnosed with type 2 diabetes to 36 participants.
After considering the risks of developing the disease, such as weight, physical inactivity and smoking, those with higher levels of PCBs in blood were up to nine times more likely to develop diabetes than the group with the lowest levels of these pollutants blood.
The association was smaller with some substances, while others had nothing to do, as published in the journal Diabetes Care, which ensures that the number of new cases of diabetes was low and that the results do not prove that PCBs cause diabetes.
But, as Carpenter said, there are increasing number of studies that suggest so.
More than 8 percent of the U.S. population has diabetes, according to the National Institutes of Health of that country, and most have type 2.