Pollutants' link to diabetes

http://www.sciencedaily.com/upi/index.php?feed=Science&article=UPI-1-20070105-18042600-bc-ecowellness-diabetes.xml

A preliminary study has found Americans who live near toxic waste sites are hospitalized more for diabetes than those who live in clean communities.

Such results suggest environmental triggers of diabetes, a fairly new research area, are worthy of more investigation, Carpenter said. As type 2 diabetes has exploded -- a two-fold increase from 5.8 million to 13.3 million Americans from 1980 to 2002 -- scientists have scrambled to find explanations for the rise. Although experts often point to the obesity epidemic, that alone can't account for it, Carpenter said.
Indeed, the "evidence is accumulating rapidly that environmental exposures are very important factors," he said.
Dr. Larry Deeb, president of medicine and science at the American Diabetes Association, also stressed obesity can't be the only culprit for the dizzying increase in diabetes.