Quitting Smoking Carries Diabetes Risk

-- Cigarette smoking is linked to an increased risk of diabetes, but quitting the habit, ironically, may increase diabetes risk in the short term, a new study says.

Researchers say people who quit smoking typically gain weight, which may explain the temporary period of increased risk for developing type 2 diabetes, which is closely linked to obesity.

The findings are reported in the Jan. 5 issue of Annals of Internal Medicine.

The authors stress that their findings should not deter people from quitting smoking, which is also a risk factor for heart disease, stroke, atherosclerosis, and cancer. They say that the health benefits of smoking cessation outweigh the short-term risk.

“The message is: Don’t even start to smoke,” Hsin-Chieh Yeh, PhD, an epidemiologist at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine and lead author of the study, says in a news release. “If you smoke, give it up. That’s the right thing to do.”

She says smokers who quit “have to also watch their weight” because obesity is tied to diabetes, cardiovascular disease, and other health problems.

Researchers in 1987-1989 enrolled 10,892 middle-aged adults who did not have diabetes and followed them for nine years. The study found that overall, people who smoked had a 42% higher risk of developing diabetes during the follow-up period than nonsmokers. However, smokers who quit had a 70% higher risk of developing type 2 diabetes in the first six years after quitting than people who had never smoked.