Is There A Connection Between Pesticides and Type 2 Diabetes?

August 19th, 2011 by Ryan Luce No Comments

written by Michael O’Leary

People with high levels of certain pesticides in their blood may have an increased risk of type 2 diabetes, a new Finnish study shows.

A note of caution before being alarmed, however, the study involved 8,760 Finnish citizens born in or around Helsinki between 1934 and 1944, and are now 67 to 77 years old. These people grew up before the pesticides called persistent organic pollutants were banned in the U.S. and other countries starting in the 1970s, as reported by Reuters Health.

The new study led by Riikka Airaksinen, of the department of Environmental Health, Chemical Exposure Unit, National Institute for Health and Welfare in Finland appears in the August issue of Diabetes Care and is not the first to link these chemicals, called organochlorines, to type 2 diabetes. (Link to published site)

As far as what people can do now to avoid exposure to these compounds, Airaksinen told Corengi by e-mail that common sense food preparation can minimize exposure.

“People are mostly exposed to pesticides and other persistent organic pollutants through their diet,” he said. “Following the dietary guidelines given by local public health authorities is a good way of protecting oneself from excess exposure to these compounds. According to the U.S. EPA, pesticide exposure can be reduced by washing and peeling fruits and vegetables, and eating them variably.”

All of the participants in this study are part of the Helsinki Birth Cohort Study, which was designed to follow two groups of individuals born between 1934 and 1944. A total of 13,345 people were enrolled in the study, and have been followed ever since to see what effects early genetic, socioeconomic, and biological factors have had on their health over their lifetimes. Numerous studies have been done on these people examining nutrition, exercise and other health behaviors as these people age.

In the current study the researchers wanted to know if exposure to pesticides in these people might be linked to type 2 diabetes. In 2003, many of these people underwent clinical examinations that included blood sampling for laboratory analysis of lipids and persistent organic pollutants. Complete data from the examinations were available for 1,988 participants. The researchers grouped these participants according to concentrations of certain persistent organic pesticides from lowest to highest levels.

Overall about 15 percent of these people had been diagnosed with type 2 diabetes. After making adjustments for other risk factors including sex, age, waist circumference and blood pressure, they found that the risk of type 2 diabetes for those with the highest levels of certain chemicals in their blood was 1.64 to 2.24 times higher than for the group with the lowest levels of the chemicals.

The limitations of the study included a lack of information about these people’s diet and exercise habits, and the people with the highest risk were also overweight or obese. The researchers wrote that this might suggest that the pollutants and body fat may produce a synergistic effect on diabetes risk, meaning that the two risk factors together increase the risk more than if you simply added the two risk factors together.

According to the CDC, chlordane remains in soil near factories where they were manufactured, and can make their way into our diets through fatty foods, dairy products, and fish. Despite being banned in the U.S. in 1988, chlordane remains in soil but concentrations have decreased over time.

For more information on preparing food to minimize your exposure visit the EPA’s pesticides health and safety site.