While earlier studies already show that air pollution increases the risk of a number of diseases (such as cardiovascular, pulmonary and kidney), a recently published study in the ‘Lancet Planetary Health’ has “quantified the connection between air pollution and diabetes.”
It claims that increased exposure to air pollution is ‘significantly associated’ with the risk of diabetes, and that “approximately 8.2 million healthy life years that were lost due to diabetes are attributable to air pollution.”
Predicting a ‘steady increase’ of type 2 diabetes through 2026, GlobalData epidemiologists estimate a 2.14% rise from 5.82% in 2016 to 7.96% in 2026.
GlobalData healthcare analyst, Nanthida Nanthavong, commented: “Compared to high-resource countries with stricter clean-air policies, low-resource countries with few air pollution policies are going to face a higher risk of diabetes.
“As several studies establish the association between air pollution and the risk of diabetes, governments need to introduce stringent policy changes for health promotion.”