Diabetes and climate change.

BACKGROUND

Diabetes mellitus, a looming crisis, is approaching worldwide epidemic proportions. In 2018, 34.2 million Americans, or 10.5% of the population had diabetes. Climate change, and in particular rising global temperatures, may exacerbate various health issues, including diabetes and ultimately lead to increased mortality.

OBJECTIVES

To identify the impact of climate change on diabetes.

METHODS

A systematic literature review of Pubmed (MEDLINE database of references and abstracts on life sciences and biomedical topics from the USA National Library of Medicine at the National Institutes of Health) and Scopus (Elsevier's abstract and citation database) with the following terms: 'diabetes' [AND] 'climate change'.

RESULTS

The following risk factors for diabetes due to climate change were identified and discussed: extreme temperatures (heat), the risk of hospitalization, shortage of medical and food supplies and urbanization.

CONCLUSIONS

Diabetes and climate change are interconnected. Extreme weather events and rising temperatures may increase morbidity and mortality in patients living with diabetes, especially in those with cardiovascular complications. Failure to mitigate climate change and the diabetes epidemic threatens the lives of many people in the U.S. and beyond.

Informations de copyright

© 2020 The Author(s). Published by Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group on behalf of Greater Baltimore Medical Center.

Déclaration de conflit d'intérêts

Author declares consulting for the Guidepoint and G.L.G. These consulting firms had no role in the design of the study; in the collection, analyses, or interpretation of data; in the writing of the manuscript, or in the decision to publish the results.