“Type 2 diabetes is a complex disease, and genetics cannot fully explain it on its own,” Dr. Vishal Midya, assistant professor of environmental medicine at ICAHN School of Medicine in Mount Sinai, told Medical News today.
“Environmental exposure is one of the few potential suspects that can directly intervene. Therefore, studying how environmental exposure increases the risk of type 2 diabetes could potentially open new tools of risk assessment and intervention opportunities,” he said.
Midya is the corresponding author of a new study recently published in the Journal Ebiomedicine, which discovered exposure to a class of synthetic chemicals called Perfluoroalkyl and Polyfluoroalkyl Subsment (PFAS), also known as “eternal chemicals.”
In this study, the researchers analyzed medical data from 53,790 participants in a large health record-related research database called Biome. From these records, scientists selected 180 people who were recently diagnosed with type 2 diabetes and compared 180 similar participants without conditions.
Using blood samples, the researchers measured the amount of PFAS levels in the blood. PFAS chemicals can be found in a variety of everyday products, including:
PFAS chemicals are known as “eternal chemicals” because they are not naturally broken in landfills. This means that PFA can leach into the surrounding soil and water, contaminating drinking water and crops grown in soils with high PFA content.
“There is ample literature (especially animal models) that demonstrate the true causal biological effects of PFA,” says Midya.
“In addition, PFA has previously been associated with type 2 diabetes, but most are associated with vulnerable populations such as pregnancy. [people] Or for children and young people. Few works have investigated the adverse effects of PFA in relatively healthy adult groups, and even before the disease was clinically diagnosed, they investigated its potential effects. “This study was one of the first to examine the effects of PFA in a relatively healthy adult group in NYC,” he explained.
In the study's conclusion, Midya and his team found that study participants with higher levels of PFA in blood samples were at a much higher risk of developing type 2 diabetes in the future.
Specifically, the researchers found that all increases in PFA exposure correlated with a 31% increase in the risk of type 2 diabetes.
“Our study highlights the deleterious effects of PFA exposure, even 4-5 years before diagnosis, and provides some biological insights. PFA is about the ability to detect in this relatively healthy adult group in NYC.”
– Vishal Midya, PhD, Mstat
“PFAs can interfere with the way the body stores and regulates fat, and as a result, the way the body controls glucose,” he continued. “High PFA levels can destroy fat and glucose regulation in the body, which can increase the risk of type 2 diabetes.”
As this study is rather based on small samples, Midya said it would need to be replicated in a larger sample.
“That's why we're currently working to replicate these results to a much larger and representative population in NYC,” he said.
“Our findings provide evidence that higher exposure to PFA may increase the risk of type 2 diabetes. The findings from this study highlight the greatest importance of preventing PFA exposure to promote public health,” he added.
“The government should take steps to educate the general population about the quiet harm that PFA exposure can cause, and will ultimately advance in enacting policies aimed at reducing PFA from food packaging to everyday products. Our research discusses past PFA exposures, but we are sure to be responsible for being exposed to today.”
– Vishal Midya, PhD, Mstat
MNT spoke to Mir Ali (MD), a board-certified general surgeon at Memorial Care Surgery Weight Loss Center at Memorial Care Surgery Medical Center at Orange Coast Medical Center in Fountain Valley, California.
Ali commented that this is a good study showing how exposure to certain chemicals can have a negative impact on your health, and in this case it increases the risk of diabetes.
“Diabetes is an increasing problem, especially in more developed countries,” he explained. “While diet and exercise can reduce risk, finding other potential sources of risk, such as environmental exposure, can be another way to reduce risk.”
“I would like to see the extent to which the risk reduction in populations reduce environmental exposure compared to those that do not reduce exposure,” he added.