Climate Change Could Lead to an Uptick in Type-2 Diabetes

Yet another way global warming poses a risk to health.

Global warming already widens the footprint of Lyme disease while Zika virus exacerbates asthma and lung diseases and increases the risks posed by violent weather and wildfires.

Now, new research suggests rising temperatures lead to a surge in diagnoses of type-2 diabetes.

The study, published Monday in the BMJ Open Diabetes Research & Care, compared annual average temperatures across the United States from 1996 to 2009 with reported new cases of type-2 diabetes.  The disease, which typically develops later in life, prevents the body from absorbing glucose needed to produce energy.  In particularly hot years, the number of new diagnoses spiked.

“When it gets warmer, there is higher incidence of diabetes,” Lisanne Blauw, the study’s co-author and a PhD candidate at the Netherlands-based Einthoven Laboratory, told The Huffington Post by phone on Tuesday.  “It’s important to realize global warming has further effects on our health, not only on the climate.”

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