A Quick Summary
If you are Diabetic who smokes, or if you care about someone who does, there is a new connection between smoking and Diabetes you should know about. The CDC says that 25% of people with Type 2 Diabetes are smokers, and every one of them is experiencing severe harm that is 100% preventable with a simple behavioral change that is not only not difficult – for any smoker it will be easy. With 32,000,000 people in the US diagnosed with Type 2, that means that 7,000,000 smokers are at risk from this unique, unrecognized threat. If you or someone you know is Diabetic and had a mother who smoked, you also may want to have this information. In this post I’ll give you links to published journal research evidence that this threat is real and that points to serious, 100% preventable harm being done to millions of Diabetics who smoke any brand of cigarette, but especially cheap cigarettes and those sweet, fruity little cigars. The hidden connection between smoking and Type 2 Diabetes is simple to point out but needs then needs some explanation.
Here it is. It begins with DDT. The hidden connection between smoking and Diabetes lies in contamination by insecticides, fungicides, neurotoxins and endocrine disruptors like DDT a specific heavy contaminant of Swisher Sweets little cigars smoked by millions of young people. DDT is totally banned worldwide and has no business being in anything that millions of Diabetics are smoking every day. The other pesticide chemicals you see below, each in its own way represent magnification of the threat posed by the heavy-hitters like DDT and Carbendazim.
Now please let me show you more links and hard data that back up this statement of fact – we know that smoking causes Type 2 Diabetes, and while some of this damage may be due to smoking tobacco, how much may be due to this toxic array of hidden bioactive chemicals, every one of which is designed to destroy life one way or another?
This is simple, actionable information that no doctor, clinic, or diabetes organization can give to you. They either don’t have a clue that the situation I am going to describe exists, or they are afraid their funding would be cut off if they mention it. However, you need to know that this is hard evidence based 100% on published journal research and it points to a possible path to relief and perhaps healing.
So here are two simple facts.
1. We know for a fact that smoking tobacco products causes Diabetes. I’ll share the hard science below – but here’s the straight CDC line:
“We now know that smoking causes type 2 diabetes.”
https://www.cdc.gov/tobacco/campaign/tips/diseases/diabetes.html
2. We also know for a fact that specific pesticide exposures including DDT and several other identified pesticides in Tobacco Cartel products cause Diabetes in newborn children, teens and adults. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/collections/45847338/
But here’s the problem – one that’s injuring and killing a lot of people. What no smoker knows, and what no doctors evidently know, is that cigarettes and cigars are loaded with exactly the same insecticides and fungicides that Diabetes journal research, plus CDC, FDA and EPA all point to as CAUSING Diabetes.
So smoking isn’t “linked to” or “associated with” Diabetes. It causes Diabetes. So do pesticides. Full stop.
So we have smoking causing Diabetes, and inhaling pesticides causing Diabetes. Could it be that what is actually causing Diabetes in smokers, and is sickening and killing millions of smokers (and their children by the way), is that nobody has a clue that Diabetic smokers are doing both, and are preventably suffering and dying because of it. Could switching to organic tobacco cigarettes as a first step to possibly quitting make a measurable difference in the health of diabetic smokers? I say yes it could, and why not try it?
Here’s a very small sample of pesticide/Diabetes research:
http://www.diabetesandenvironment.org/home/contam/pesticides
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/31792807/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5787249
So how about a little discussion of these simple facts.
Many of us already know that smoking is proven to radically increase the risk of developing Diabetes, and to make diabetes worse. As we saw, the American CDC says “Smoking causes diabetes” Not just “associated with” Diabetes or “linked to” Diabetes. Smoking causes Diabetes.
OK. But smoking what, and why is it causing Diabetes? Nobody seems to be asking the question. The answer may be very important to smokers with Diabetes, whose cigarettes and cigars are loaded with unregulated and even banned pesticides in concentrations known to cause Diabetes through chronic exposure – like through smoking, for example. Problem is, not one MD in the world appears to know that the Diabetic smoker they’re treating is being exposed to pesticides several hundred times a day. You have to wonder how many of the “complications” of smoking in Diabetics are actually consequences of pesticide exposure. The docs are seeing the consequences, and the patient is sure experiencing them, and they both think they know what’s causing it – the “tobacco”. Except – many cigarette brands aren’t actually tobacco. And even if smoking tobacco causes Diabetes – which nobody in the world has ever actually tested since they all use industry-supplied cigarettes, never organic tobacco, for all their ‘science‘ – that still leaves the question of what inhaling that cocktail of pesticides you see in the data below is doing to the smoker. Well, we actually do know that because if the smoker were not a smoker but was somehow inhaling that same mix of pesticides you see in the tables below from somewhere, hundreds of times a day, my guess is that the pesticide/diabetes science would apply. They would be at very high risk to get Diabetes, right?
So here’s my question – if we know for sure that exposure to pesticides causes Diabetes, which we do, and if we know for sure that smoking causes Diabetes, which we do, and with hard data from the “Smoke No Evil” cigarette/pesticide tests in 2018 (see the data below) we also know that smokers are inhaling a cocktail of pesticides with every puff. So here’s a question for everyone from smokers to doctors to families to public health authorities – what would happen if Diabetic smokers kept right on smoking but switched to organic tobacco cigarettes and therefore stopped inhaling pesticides? Will Diabetics who smoke still sicken and die as quickly, or at all if they switch to smoking organic tobacco?
Diabetics who smoke are clearly at increased risk of death if they contract COVID19 at the same time that their immune system is being destroyed by insecticides and fungicides with every cigarette puff. Could a simple switch to pesticide-free cigarettes or RYO save at least some lives?
Those aren’t such dumb questions once you take a look at the science. There are dozens of peer-reviewed articles that support the causal link between pesticide exposure and diabetes, just like there are hundreds supporting the causal link between smoking and diabetes. Like these.
Smoking and Incidence of Diabetes Among U.S. Adults
Findings from the Insulin Resistance Atherosclerosis Study
Diabetes Care 2005 Oct; 28(10): 2501-2507
https://doi.org/10.2337/diacare.28.10.2501
RESULTS—Of current smokers, 96 (25%) developed diabetes at 5 years, compared with 60 (14%) never smokers. After multivariable adjustment, current smokers exhibited increased incidence of diabetes compared with never smokers (odds ratio [OR] 2.66, P = 0.001). Similar results were found among current smokers with ≥20 pack-years with normal glucose tolerance (5.66, P = 0.001).
CONCLUSIONS—Smoking shares a robust association with incident diabetes, supporting the current Surgeon General’s warnings against cigarette smoking.
Now let’s look at the relationship between pesticide exposure and Diabetes. Same conclusions. Remarkable isn’t it? There’s much much more.
https://www.webmd.com/diabetes/news/20150916/pesticide-exposure-tied-to-diabetes-risk#
Sept. 16, 2015
“After reviewing 21 previous studies, researchers found exposure to any type of pesticide was associated with a 61 percent increased risk for any type of diabetes. The increased risk for type 2 diabetes — the most common type — was 64 percent, the investigators found.”
Volume 91, May 2016, Pages 60-68
Exposure to pesticides and diabetes: A systematic review and meta-analysis
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0160412016300496
Results
We identified 22 studies assessing the association between pesticides and diabetes. The summary OR for the association of top vs. bottom tertile of exposure to any type of pesticide and diabetes was 1.58 (95% CI: 1.32–1.90, p = 1.21 × 10− 6), with large heterogeneity (I2 = 66.8%). Studies evaluating Type 2 diabetes in particular (n = 13 studies), showed a similar summary effect comparing top vs. bottom tertiles of exposure: 1.61 (95% CI 1.37–1.88, p = 3.51 × 10− 9) with no heterogeneity (I2 = 0%). Analysis by type of pesticide yielded an increased risk of diabetes for DDE, heptachlor, HCB, DDT, and trans-nonachlor or chlordane.
The Smoking Gun
So – here’s graphic evidence of the reason for the causal links between smoking and Diabetes. Google any one of these and any of the major symptoms of Diabetes or any Diabetes-related condition. Browse the science. And remember – just because you see “trace” doesn’t mean that chemical isn’t highly bioactive even below the limits of detection.
Please check this link: solid new science tells us that a trace is all it takes of many new pesticides. They don’t depend on dosage for firepower. They are 100% stealthy by design and even a few molecules on-target on-time will do the job on any endocrine system or any nervous system or any reproductive system of any living creature.
(The Journal) Toxicology
“Toxic effects of pesticide mixtures at a molecular level: their relevance to human health”
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/22728724/
IMO this is a “sound the alarm, all hands on deck” situation. This is a public health emergency on or above the scale of COVID in terms of suffering and death that could be ended virtually overnight with simple legislation setting regulatory limits on pesticides in tobacco products and incentivizing the production of organic tobacco rather than continuing the futile – but highly lucrative – effort to eradicate smoking.
Conclusions
So – without going into an exhaustive review of the science, which I am working on for a new chapter in “Smoke No Evil”, let me just say that I wanted to publish these ideas now, as I am developing them, so that in case anyone reads this who cares, this long-concealed causal link is now out in the open. There’s a lot more science than I present here behind both parts of this mysterious gap in knowledge. A lot of people who are being badly injured by smoking could be helped if they only knew enough to make their own decision to switch to organic tobacco. I doubt that many doctors, who are among the most effectively brainwashed people when it comes to Tobacco, would ever recommend switching to smoking organic, which is easy and effective, rather than quitting, which is difficult and ineffective. Go figure.
Please share this and help raise awareness that there may be a new path through the wilderness of Diabetes, at least for smokers.
It is such a simple proposition – if you are diabetic and you smoke, before you go through the agony of trying to quit, why not just switch to organic tobacco cigarettes for one month and see how you feel and equally important see how your numbers are looking.
If you would like to explore this topic further you might like my newest blog post “Quit Without Quitting: How & Why Diabetic Smokers Can Heal Themselves“
