Over the course of recent decades, smoking rates in China have risen dramatically. Today, roughly two-thirds of the country’s men are now smokers. Meanwhile, the prevalence of diabetes in the country has jumped nearly 1,000% since the 1980s, leaving one in ten adults affected by the disease. And now, new research published in the journal The Lancet Public Health may explain at least part of the reason why diabetes rates have increased alongside smoking rates in the country.
According to the study’s findings, regular smokers are 15% to 30% more likely to develop diabetes. And the risk for overweight smokers is even greater.
In comparison to those who never smoked, the researchers found that those who smoked 30 cigarettes or more per day to be at 30% greater risk of developing diabetes — this as it pertains to smokers of normal body weight. But for overweight smokers, including the obese, the risk jumps even higher to 60%.
One of the study’s authors, Professor Zhengming Chen with the University of Oxford, indicated in a statement that “excess smoking-associated risk of diabetes among men in China is likely to increase substantially in future generations because the tobacco epidemic is maturing, but also because levels of overweight and obesity continue to rise among adults in China.”
“The excess smoking-associated risk of diabetes among men in China is likely to increase substantially in future generations because the tobacco epidemic is maturing, but also because levels of overweight and obesity continue to rise among adults in China.”
The study, which was conducted by researchers from the University of Oxford, the Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences, and Peking University, examined 500,000 adults across 10 areas in China, half rural and half urban. Participants had no prior history of diabetes at the baseline of the study.
Prior studies into smoking’s potential relation to type 2 diabetes have suggested that quitting smoking might actually increase the risk of developing type 2 diabetes, however, this latest study examined this notion and found that such an increase in risk for quitting smokers was only seen in those who had given up smoking as a result of illness. Which is to say, these people were already sick by the time they gave up cigarettes.
Dr. Fiona Bragg with the University of Oxford, one of the study’s co-authors, indicated in a statement that the study’s findings “add to existing evidence to the health benefits of giving up smoking, not only for prevention of cancer, respiratory and cardiovascular diseases, but now also for prevention of diabetes.”
“These findings add to existing evidence to the health benefits of giving up smoking, not only for prevention of cancer, respiratory and cardiovascular diseases, but now also for prevention of diabetes.”
In the United Kingdom, the public healthcare system has begun to push smokers to switch to vaping as vaping, in contrast to smoking, has been shown to carry only a fraction of the health risks associated with smoking.
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