“One of the interesting things that we saw was that smoking was associated with increased amounts of fat within the abdomen,” said Michael E. Hall, M.D., a study co-author and an assistant professor of medicine in the division of cardiology at the University of Mississippi Medical Center in Jackson. “Visceral fat was higher in current smokers, and this is what we think is one of the potential mechanisms by which smoking may increase the risk of diabetes.”
Hall, a co-investigator on a project under the AHA’s Tobacco Regulation and Addiction Center, added: “Fat within the abdomen has several potential adverse effects which affect glucose. This fat causes alterations in hormones that regulate blood glucose and it may cause more inflammation.”
Cardiovascular disease researcher Neha Pagidipati, M.D., said the study is helpful because there’s little information about the link between smoking and diabetes in blacks.
“I think this study was important because it looked at a very important and modifiable risk factor in a population that has generally been understudied in terms of cardiovascular risk factors,” said Pagidipati, a cardiology fellow at Duke University’s School of Medicine who was not involved in the study.
The findings, however, don’t definitively show heavy cigarette smoking causes diabetes, she said, and scientists should look deeper into that relationship. “This is an important issue.”