The link between smoking and diabetes is important, she said, because it is very damaging to the body and diabetics can lose limbs or have other complications.
It’s also expensive to treat: The estimated medical costs of treating diabetes were $245 billion in 2012.
The study statistics show 466 participants were diagnosed with new cases of diabetes between 2000 and 2012. Among past smokers and those who smoked less than a pack a day, the rate of new diabetes diagnoses was similar to those who never smoked. But the rate of new cases among smokers who consumed at least a pack a day was 62 percent higher compared to those who never smoked.
A recent report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention shows that American Indians and Alaska Natives are much more likely to smoke cigarettes than other race and ethnic groups. Hispanics and Asians have the lowest smoking rates.
According to the CDC’s statistics, about 17 percent of whites and Blacks smoke cigarettes. Black men are more likely to smoke than their white peers, but black women are less likely to smoke than white women. A diabetes diagnosis is more common among Black adults than white and Hispanic adults.