Dr Jonathan Wright
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New Risks from Passive Smoking
Just as smokers north of the border have been forced to stub out in public, and the same restrictions will come into force across the rest of the UK next summer, comes new research published in the British Medical Journal with yet more reasons to justify the ban on smoking in public.
There have been a number of studies showing a link between smoking and increased glucose intolerance (a precursor to diabetes, when the body can no longer produce enough of the hormone insulin, which regulates blood sugar). But for the first time, a study in the US points to passive smoking as a factor in causing diabetes.
Passive Smoking: As if we needed another reason
If heart disease and cancer werent enough to keep you away from smoky environments, add to the list blindness and amputation, which can be caused by type 2 diabetes.
US researchers examined more than 4,500 men and women over a period of 15 years. It was found in this time, 22 per cent of smokers developed glucose intolerance. Of those that never smoked, 11.5 per cent developed glucose intolerance. And, most interestingly, of those exposed to second-hand smoke, 17 per cent developed glucose intolerance.
Passive Smoking: Toxic shock
Smoking has been associated with risk of chronic pancreatitis and pancreatic cancer, suggesting, according to Thomas Houston of the Birmingham Veterans Affairs Medical Center in Alabama, who led the research, that tobacco smoke may be directly toxic to the pancreas, where insulin is produced.
Smoke released from a cigarette between inhalations is cooler than the smoke which is directly inhaled. This cool smoke contains higher levels of some toxins than the directly inhaled smoke, which could explain why passive smokers in the study were at greater risk of developing glucose intolerance than those who had smoked in the past, but since given up.
The report concludes, We identified passive tobacco exposure in never smokers as a new risk factor for glucose intolerance. If confirmed by further research, these findings provide further documentation of the
deleterious effects of tobacco smoking, and policy makers may use them as additional justification to reduce exposure to passive smoke.
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