RESEARCH - Quitting smoking carries diabetes risk

[Guest guest]

Quitting Smoking s Diabetes Risk

Smoking Cessation Temporarily Increases Diabetes Risk, but Researchers

Say the Benefits of Quitting Outweigh the Risk

By Bill Hendrick

WebMD

Health News

Reviewed by Louise Chang, MD

Jan. 4, 2010 -- 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 ls 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 s 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.”

**********************************************

Read the whole article here:

http://www.webmd.com/smoking-cessation/news/20100104/quitting-smoking-carries-di\

abetes-risk

Not an MD