A recent study by researchers at Ohio State University has uncovered a link between air pollution and childhood disease.
Researchers placed mice on normal or high-fat diets and then exposed them to either clean, filtered air or polluted air. Starting at three weeks of age, mice were exposed to the polluted air for six hours a day, five days a week for 10 weeks, which roughly matches human toddler age to late adolescence.
The surprising results from this study were published in the December issue of the journal Arteriosclerosis, Thrombosis, and Vascular Biology.
Ohio State researchers discovered that mice exposed to polluted air had larger and more fat cells in their abdominal area plus higher blood sugar levels than mice eating the same diet but breathing clean air. In other words, regardless of diet, mice exposed to higher air pollution became pre-diabetic.
“This is one of the first, if not the first, study to show that these fine particulates directly cause inflammation and changes in fat cells, both of which increase the risk for Type 2 diabetes," said Dr. Qinghua Sun, an associate professor and lead author of the study.
Researchers say studies will soon be underway with humans to help determine the link between air pollution and diabetes. In the meantime, they emphasized that diet and exercise are still considered the most crucial risks in diabetes, but that learning more about the effects of air pollution could help in understanding and curbing the growing number of cases.