For black people, smoking at least a pack of cigarettes a day is tied to a higher risk of developing diabetes, a US study has suggested. While previous research has found that smokers and black people both have higher risks of diabetes than nonsmokers and individuals from other racial and ethnic backgrounds, the current study offers fresh evidence that the amount of cigarette use can impact this risk. Researchers examined data on 2,991 black adults who didn’t have diabetes, including 361 who were current smokers and 502 who were ex-smokers. After an average follow-up of eight years, 479 participants developed diabetes. Compared to people who never smoked, participants who smoked at least 20 cigarettes a day, roughly the size of one pack of cigarettes, were 79 percent more likely to develop diabetes. Ex-smokers and people who smoked no more than 10 cigarettes a day, however, didn’t appear to have a higher diabetes risk than people who never used cigarettes at all. “Obviously, all smokers should be encouraged to quit,” said senior study author Dr Michael Hall of the University of Mississippi Medical Center in Jackson. “However, it is possible that decreasing the number of cigarettes smoked daily may reduce the risk of developing diabetes in blacks at risk,” Hall said by email. Overall, 15 percent of the people who never smoked developed diabetes, the study found. That compares to 20 percent of former smokers and 17 percent of current smokers. After researchers accounted for other factors that can influence diabetes risk, smoking status alone didn’t appear to influence whether people developed diabetes. But then researchers took a closer look at how much people smoked and found heavy smoking and more years as a smoker were associated with an increased risk of diabetes.
Published in Daily Times, January 29th 2018.