Association between long-term exposure to ambient air pollution and diabetes mortality in the US

Recent mechanistic and epidemiological evidence implicates air pollution as a potential risk factor for diabetes; however, mortality risks have not been evaluated in a large US cohort assessing exposures to multiple pollutants with detailed consideration of personal risk factors for diabetes.

We assessed the effects of long-term ambient air pollution exposures on diabetes mortality in the NIH-AARP Diet and Health Study, a cohort of approximately a half million subjects across the contiguous U.S. The cohort, with a follow-up period between 1995 and 2011, was linked to residential census tract estimates for annual mean concentration levels of PM_2.5, NO₂, and O₃. Associations between the air pollutants and the risk of diabetes mortality (N = 3598) were evaluated using multivariate Cox proportional hazards models adjusted for both individual-level and census-level contextual covariates.

Diabetes mortality was significantly associated with increasing levels of both PM_2.5 (HR = 1.19; 95% CI: 1.03-1.39 per 10 μg/m³) and NO₂ (HR = 1.09; 95% CI: 1.01-1.18 per 10 ppb). The strength of the relationship was robust to alternate exposure assessments and model specifications. We also observed significant effect modification, with elevated mortality risks observed among those with higher BMI and lower levels of fruit consumption.

We found that long-term exposure to PM_2.5 and NO₂, but not O₃, is related to increased risk of diabetes mortality in the U.S, with attenuation of adverse effects by lower BMI and higher fruit consumption, suggesting that air pollution is involved in the etiology and/or control of diabetes.