14 DAY TRIAL // Scientists have recently established that smokers who are also diabetics put themselves at an increased risk of developing complications to their condition if they continue on with the habit. This effect adds to the large number of health consequences that smoking has.
According to the new work, the addictive chemical found in cigarettes – nicotine – may play a role in boosting blood sugar levels, which is very dangerous for diabetics. This increases their risk of developing some of the most common complications associated with the disease.
These include cardiovascular problems, eye, kidney and brain damage, hypoglycemia, coma and blindness. Most diabetes sufferers need to take active steps to avoid developing these conditions.
However, even if said steps are taken, chances increase if diabetics smoke, the new study finds. And nicotine appears to play a direct role in this, the team behind the work adds.
“If you're a smoker and have diabetes, you should be concerned and make every effort to quit smoking,” explains California State Polytechnic University (CSPU) Department of Chemistry associate professor and study researcher Xiao-Chuan Liu.
In past investigation, experts demonstrated that smoking can be correlated to an increase in the average amount of blood sugar recorded over several weeks. This measure is called the HbA1c level.
Taking matters a step further, CSPU experts demonstrated that nicotine itself is responsible for the elevated HbA1c levels smoking diabetes patients display, LiveScience reports.
“It is another piece of evidence encouraging patients to stop smoking, especially if they have diabetes,” explains the associate director of the Diabetes and Endocrine Center at the Union Memorial Hospital in Maryland, Dr. Mansur Shomali.
“We should be more diligent of screening patients with diabetes who smoke for diabetes-related complications,” adds the expert, who was not a part of the investigation.
The research team found that diabetics who smoke exhibit a HbA1c level increase of as much as 34 percent over their peers. It could be that nicotine interacts with the way glucose (sugar) attaches itself to proteins.
This has significant consequences, considering that the structure and shape of these molecules – and therefore their function too – are influenced by these changes. Oftentimes, the only difference between two identical proteins is their shape. Their effects differ considerably, experts say.
“I think the population with high smoking rates should be concerned. If you increase the HbA1c level by one percent, you increase complication risk by 40 percent,” Liu goes on to say.