Pesticide Exposure Can Increase Type 2 Diabetes Risk

Researchers said they have confirmed a link between Type 2 diabetes and pesticides known as persistent organic pollutants. The study is not the first to show a link between the disease and the pollutants, also known as POPs, but it found that patients with the highest exposure to such chemicals as polychlorinated biphenyls, or PCBs, and oxychlordane had a risk of Type 2 diabetes up to more than twice as high as those with the lowest levels of exposure, especially if they were overweight. While many of the pesticides have been banned or restricted, they build up in the environment and collect in the fatty tissue of animals and people. An earlier study, published in Diabetes Care in 2007 and led by Lee Duk-Hee of Kyungpook National University in Daegu, Korea, who also was involved in the Swedish study, found that exposure to POPs increased insulin resistance, a known factor in Type 2 diabetes. Diabetes Care, Aug 2011