Ananya DuttaGlobal warming has far reaching consequences; rising temperatures are bleaching coral reefs, and if temperatures rise further than polar ice will melt faster, sea levels will rise, coasts will disappear under water and many species of animals and plants will go extinct. Now it seems that global warming might affect human health adversely as well.
Scientists have warned about the negative effects of global warming on human health numerous times as unexpected weather events might occur due to warming and cause infectious diseases and food shortages. But now it looks like global warming has already started to have some effect on diabetes.
According to a study published in the journal BMJ Open Diabetes Research & Care, rising temperatures could be contributing to the increasing prevalence of Type-2 diabetes. The brown adipose tissue in the human body transforms food into heat energy, and this tissue is stimulated by cold. So, in colder climes the brown adipose helps in keeping body weight down and improves insulin sensitivity and action which cuts down the risk of developing diabetes. Scientists hypothesize that increasing temperature could cause BAT to go dormant, lower activity of the tissue would mean lower metabolism and more free fatty acids that will prevent insulin from clearing glucose from the blood and thus increasing the risk of diabetes.
The researchers from the Leiden University Medical Center started the study with the aim of finding out if global warming had any influence in the growth of type 2 diabetes by reducing BAT activity. The observational study was quite large scale, diabetes incidence data among adults from all 50 states of the US along with data from Guam, Puerto Rico and Virgin Islands were used in the study. The time frame of the study was from 1996 to 2009. National Diabetes Surveillance System of CDC was the source of the data.
The Dutch researchers also looked at global data from World Health Organization’s Global Health Observatory online data repository system to analyze the prevalence rates of raised fasting blood glucose in 190 countries. Country wise and state wise average annual temperature data was also used.
They found that the higher the average temperature, the higher the incidence of diabetes after adjusting for age. An average temperature increase by 1 degree Celsius accounted for increase in diabetes cases by 3.1 per 10,000 people. The worldwide prevalence of glucose intolerance rose by 0.17 percent per 1-degree Celsius increase in temperature. Researchers also found that each 1-degree Celsius temperature increase was associated with a 0.173% increase in the prevalence of obesity.
“To the best of our knowledge, this study is the first to assess the association of outdoor temperature with diabetes incidence and the prevalence of raised fasting blood glucose on a national and global level,” the researchers wrote.
Mohith Agadi
Editorial Staff
