Smoking can give you diabetes

The study suggests that, when considering overall costs of healthcare, obese patients with type 2 diabetes, especially those with recent disease onset, should be prioritised for obesity surgery over those without type 2 diabetes, since many patients see a reversal of diabetes after surgery and thus need fewer expensive diabetes medications or treatment for complications in future.

But the Harvard researchers said this increased risk gradually drops over time once smokers kick the habit.

If the link is proven, efforts to reduce smoking could have a big impact on tackling diabetes worldwide, say researchers.

Results of the study support the long-standing belief that type 2 diabetes may be influenced by lifestyle choices, including low physical activity.

The associations persisted in all subgroups, and a dose-response relation was found too.

The new analysis included 88 previous studies involving almost 6 million people.

PASSIVE smoking could increase the risk of developing type 2 diabetes, a global study has claimed.

Former smokers were also at 14 percent greater risk for type 2 diabetes than those who never smoked, and people exposed to secondhand smoke on a regular basis had a 22 percent higher risk for the blood sugar disease, the findings showed.

They also found a 54 per cent increased risk of type 2 diabetes in people who quit smoking less than 5 years ago, which fell to 18 per cent increased risk after 5 years and 11 per cent increased risk more than 10 years after quitting. The increased risk of developing type 2 diabetes was 21 per cent, 34 per cent, and 57 per cent for light, moderate, and heavy smokers, respectively, compared with those who never smoked.

“Despite the global efforts to combat the tobacco epidemic, cigarette use remains the leading cause of mortality and morbidity worldwide”, study first author An Pan, a professor of epidemiology at the School of Public Health at Tongji Medical College, Huazhong University of Science and Technology, in China, said in a university news release.

In an accompanying commentary, Ricardo Cohen, MD, of the Center for Obesity and Diabetes, Hospital Oswaldo Cruz, Sao Paolo, Brazil, wrote, “A strong need exists for new guidelines that take into account several other factors-mainly uncontrolled diabetes-in addition to the present ones that are exclusively BMI based, except for the 2014 National Institute for Health and Care Excellence guidelines that recommend bariatric surgery in patients with diabetes with BMIs of 30-35 kg/m”.