• E-mail
• Print
• RSS

Secondhand smoke may be diabetes culprit in young adults

Respiratory Care Weekly, April 12, 2006

Young adult smokers carry an increased risk of diabetes, and they pass that risk on to their nonsmoking friends and family via secondhand smoke, says a report in the April British Medical Journal. While both black and white people have increased risk of diabetes in this scenario, the researchers found that white people seem to be more susceptible to the disease via cigarette smoke.

In the study of about 5,000 adults from several American cities, including Birmingham, AL; Chicago; Minneapolis; and Oakland, CA, researchers found that smokers had the highest diabetes risk, with 22% of them getting the disease over the study period. Nonsmokers who had no exposure to second-hand smoke had the lowest risk, with less than 12% developing the condition. This number increased to 17% among nonsmokers exposed to secondhand smoke, according to the Medical Journal.

• E-mail to a Colleague
• Print
• RSS
• Archive