Tuesday, January 5, 2010
People who quit smoking are at high risk of developing type 2 diabetes after they lash out the habit, most likely because of post-quitting weight gain, a new study has found.
Experts warning, however, that the benefits of quitting smoking including a lower risk of heart attack and lung cancer far outweigh the jeopardy of developing diabetes, which can be treated with diet, exercise, and medication.
The study, which was published at present in the Annals of Internal Medicine, followed almost 11,000 middle-aged people without diabetes 45% of whom were smokers over a 9 year period. Compared to those who had never smoked, the people who quit smoking in the study had a 73 percent increased risk of developing type 2 diabetes 3 years after quitting?
The increased risk was even more dramatic in the years instantly after quitting. "Based on our analysis, probably 80% or even 90%," says the study's lead author, Hsin-Chieh (Jessica) Yeh, PhD, an assistant professor of internal medicine and epidemiology at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine.
By contrast, the smokers who sustained to light up were only 31 percent more likely than non-smokers to have developed diabetes at the three-year mark. Earlier research has shown that smokers are at high risk of developing diabetes.
There was some good news in the study: The increased risk of diabetes doesn't appear to last over the long term. After 12 years with no cigarettes, the ex-smokers were at no greater risk for diabetes than the people who had never smoked the study show.
In total, 1,254 participants in the study developed type 2 diabetes, a chronic disease in which the body fails to sufficiently convert blood sugar (glucose) into energy.
The spike in diabetes risk that the researchers observed is most likely because of the extra pounds that many ex-smokers pack on after giving up cigarettes, Yeh and her contemporaries note. Weight gain is a major risk factor for type 2 diabetes, and it is also one of the most common side effects of smoking cessation.
The people in the study who quit smoking get an average of 8.4 pounds, which is in the usual range (most ex-smokers gain about 4 to 10 pounds), and those who gained the most weight showed the utmost risk for developing diabetes also the waistlines of the ex-smokers in the study also grew by an average of 1.25 inches; abdominal fat is one more risk factor for diabetes.
