Researchers studied data from 1.7 million U.S. veterans who were followed for a median of 8.5 years. The veterans did not have histories of diabetes. They linked the data with Environmental Protection Agency’s land-based air monitoring systems as well as space satellites operated by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration. They also used data from the Global Burden of Disease study, which is conducted annually.
They found that overall pollution contributed to 3.2 million new diabetes cases worldwide in 2016 — which is around 14 percent of all new diabetes cases around the world that year. In the United States, around 150,000 new cases of diabetes per year could be attributed to air pollution.
The EPA’s pollution threshold is 12 micrograms per cubic meter of air in the U.S., and using mathematical models researchers estimated an increased diabetes risk at 2.4 micrograms per cubic meter of air. Among a sample of veterans exposed to pollution at a level of between 5 to 10 micrograms per cubic meter of air, about 21 percent developed diabetes. If the exposure increases to 11.9 to 13.6 micrograms per cubic meter of air, about 24 percent of the veterans developed diabetes.
In addition, the study shows that the overall risk of pollution-related diabetes is heightened in lower income countries that may lack environmental mitigation systems resources and clean air policies.
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