By Janet Raloff
A pair of new studies — one in the United States, another in Germany — reports strong evidence that diabetes rates climb with increasing air pollution in the form of of tiny airborne particles.
“Although previous studies had hinted at this possibility, the data were mostly from small studies or from animals exposed to high levels of particulate matter,” notes Aruni Bhatnagar, a cardiovascular researcher at the University of Louisville in Kentucky who did not take part in either study. He says the new data provide important and more rigorous evidence that real-world pollution may be tampering with blood sugar control in a large and growing number of people.
Both new studies focused on tiny airborne motes spewed primarily by traffic, coal-fired power plants and industrial boilers.
The new findings are particularly disturbing when set against “an exploding pandemic, if you will, of type 2 diabetes, particularly in urbanized areas around the world,” adds cardiologist Sanjay Rajagopalan of the Ohio State University College of Medicine in Columbus, who is also unaffiliated with either new study. “The traditional explanation for this pandemic,” he says, “has been changes in lifestyle — diet and exercise — and increasing obesity.”