A seven-year investigation involving 12,000 people in Delhi and Chennai reveals a connection between higher blood sugar levels and PM2.5 particles.
According to the first research of its sort conducted in India, breathing contaminated air raises the likelihood of type 2 diabetes. High levels of sugar in the blood and a higher incidence of type 2 diabetes were linked to breathing air containing large concentrations of PM2.5 particles, according to research from Delhi and Chennai, a city in southern India.
PM2.5 particles, which are thirty times thinner than a hair strand, can cause a number of respiratory and cardiovascular conditions when they enter the circulation by inhalation.
The study is a component of the 2010–starting research on chronic illnesses in India.
It is the initial study to address the connection between type 2 diabetes and being exposed to ambient PM2.5 in India, which is among the most air pollution-affected nations in the world.
The study found that Delhi had yearly average PM2.5 levels of 82–100 μg/m3 and Chennai had 30–40 μg/m3, which are much higher than the WHO limit of 5 μg/m3. The national limits for air quality in India are 40μg/m3.
In India, there is also a significant prevalence of non-communicable diseases, such as diabetes, hypertension, and heart disease. A June report published in the Lancet estimated that 101 million people, or 11.4% of the population, have diabetes, and another 136 million are pre-diabetic. In the UK, the average prevalence of diabetes was 8.6% in 2019, compared to 6.2% in the European Union.
According to the Lancet study, there are more diabetics in India’s cities than in its rural areas, and the country’s diabetes prevalence is higher than previously thought.
In the BMJ study, blood sugar levels were routinely taken on an entire group of 12 thousand men and women who were monitored in New Delhi and Chennai between 2010 and 2017. They calculated the amount of air pollution in each participant’s vicinity throughout that period of time using satellites data and exposure to air pollution models.
They discovered that blood sugar levels rose after a single month of exposure to PM2.5, and that the chance of developing diabetes increased after a year or more of exposure. Diabetes risk increased by 22% for every 10μg/m3 rise in the average yearly PM2.5 level in both of the cities.