Guest essay by Eric Worrall
A new study claims a warmer climate is associated with higher rates of diabetes. But even if the authors are right, obesity, diet, age and heredity remain the dominant factors.
Diabetes incidence and glucose intolerance prevalence increase with higher outdoor temperature
Lisanne L Blauw, N Ahmad Aziz, Martijn R Tannemaat, C Alexander Blauw, Anton J de Craen, Hanno Pij, Patrick C N Rensen
Abstract
Objective Rising global temperatures might contribute to the current worldwide diabetes epidemic, as higher ambient temperature can negatively impact glucose metabolism via a reduction in brown adipose tissue activity. Therefore, we examined the association between outdoor temperature and diabetes incidence in the USA as well as the prevalence of glucose intolerance worldwide.
Research design and methods Using meta-regression, we determined the association between mean annual temperature and diabetes incidence during 1996–2009 for each US state separately. Subsequently, results were pooled in a meta-analysis. On a global scale, we performed a meta-regression analysis to assess the association between mean annual temperature and the prevalence of glucose intolerance.
Results We demonstrated that, on average, per 1°C increase in temperature, age-adjusted diabetes incidence increased with 0.314 (95% CI 0.194 to 0.434) per 1000. Similarly, the worldwide prevalence of glucose intolerance increased by 0.170% (95% CI 0.107% to 0.234%) per 1°C rise in temperature. These associations persisted after adjustment for obesity.
Conclusions Our findings indicate that the diabetes incidence rate in the USA and prevalence of glucose intolerance worldwide increase with higher outdoor temperature.
…
Read more: http://drc.bmj.com/content/5/1/e000317
The data seems quite noisy. For example, consider the following graph (Table 1 in the study) of diabetes incidence vs change in temperature.
The state of South Carolina (average annual temperature 63F) shows a strong correlation between diabetes and temperature, but the state of Louisiana (average annual temperature 69F) shows a strong negative correlation. Arizona (average annual temperature 75F) also shows a negative correlation.
In addition, the impact of the factors the study attempted to adjust for is likely significantly larger than the impact demonstrated by the study.
For example, the following, from a 2007 study of body mass index vs diabetes, shows a strong relationship between body mass and diabetes, ranging from below 5% for skinny people to around 25% for very fat people – a far more pronounced effect than the small difference claimed by the climate study above.
Note the substantial disagreement between the two studies in the graph above, of the impact of obesity on diabetes rate.
I’m not saying the authors are necessarily wrong, they appear to have made a credible attempt to tease out a small effect from a noisy data set. But even if they are right, factors other than temperature are far more significant predictors of whether someone is likely to suffer from diabetes.
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Utter nonsense. Any phenomenon that showed a rising rate at the same time as measurable warming could be shown to correlate but it means nothing about causation. Perhaps a rising diabetes rate correlates with vast amounts of government money thrown at electric vehicles, windmills and solar arrays.
EBT cards.
I think this study is a holdover intended for the former intelligentsia at EPA for use in form-fit science alongside asthma. Grants don’t run out on the same day the numskull granting administrators leave office.
” Resourceguy on March 21, 2017 at 6:32 am
I think this study is a holdover intended for the former intelligentsia at EPA for use in form-fit science alongside asthma.”
Or back to Doc Holliday’s pulmonary tuberculosis.
Btw… troe the medical mensa candidate predictics that warmer temps also correlate with higher incidences if heart disease, cancers, and death rates. My study would be conducted in Arizona and Florida. Idiots.
OH. for efffsss sake.I drink two beers and my blood sugar goes down to 4.7. Diabetic? NOT.
Some ~4 years I had the chance to buy Cola Sirup / Cola Base in 2 ltrs bottles, to mix 1:10 with Soda.
Attached only sugar couleur because of the typical cola color.
One day in the store anything left on the shelf was some ‘children Cola Sirup’, of course heavy sugar loaded.
So I returned to beer based diary. Serves me well: after all beer is sugar / C6H12O6 without fructose.
A mind numbingly stupid report, based on terrible ignorance of the cause and effect of biochemistry in the body.
While sugar intake is a factor, a core driver of overweight, obesity, diabetes and cancer is George McGovern’s senate committee that created the first Us Govt food guidelines. It was written by the Labor Reporter for the Providence Journal, who was a political activist and a Vegan, who was against people eating meat. There was never any solid science behind the “low fat, high carbohydrate” diets that they pushed. The US govt then fubdef hundreds of millions of dollars in studies on the topic. But their research results didn’t support their pre-conceived political agendas, so they buried the results. Lots of parallels to modern climate data manipulation, for grants and political power via expanding government agencies and funding, while fooling the public.
Another key factor was Ancel Keyes’ 7 country study. He claimed that as saturated fat consumption went up, heart disease went up. Another zealous effort driven by agenda, not science. In reality, Keyes had studied over twenty countries. But taken all together, again the research did not support his agenda that saturated fat was bad. Per the 2015 US Govt Guidelines, they have finally reversed that nonsense. There is now no restriction on dietary intake of saturated fats. None! We need good fats in our diets.
The modern research shows the it is carbohydrate intake (sugar is just one type of carbohydrate) which turns into blood glucose i.e. Blood Sugar. A key problem is the triggering of the hormone Insulin, via high carbohydrate diets and high protein diets (excess protein also converts to blood glucose).
We now know that blood glucose is a “dirty” fuel. It’s use in the cell’s aerobic (with oxygen) energy production in the mitochondria, creates a flood of damaging free radicals that destroy tissues from within, including damage to our cell’s energy producing mitochondria, one if Einstein’s buddies Otto Warburg discovered the metabolism of cancer cells around 1923 and he was awarded the Nobel Prize around 1931. The Warburg Effect has had a resurgence, as modern research is further unlocking the pathway to why high carbohydrate and high protein diets produce destruction in our cell’s ability to produce energy with oxygen.
Net effect… US government guidelines that were not based in solid medical research, spread very harmful high carbohydrate, high protein diets around the world.
Further harming people were political extremist groups like Science in the Public Interest. Much like anti-Science Climate zealot groups today, they made tons of money off of spreading false claims, driven by scare-mongering attacks against fast food companies and processed food producers. Much like modern Climate demonization attack campaigns today, similar Left-wing groups were also attacking businesses with intense propaganda campaigns. They forced Fast Foid producers to drop enormously stable fats like palm and coconut oil in high temp cooking. Instead, those political groups and their friends in the left-wing media actually pushed the use of Trsns Fats, which are very bad for the body.
That is to say, the Left-wi g political groups and Left-wing media groups, along with their political allies like powerful Senator George McGovern, overthrust good diets and created one of the worst possible combinations of food consumption. Their political and funding driven extremism, which was not based in solid science research, likely created more unnecessary human deaths and more major human disease than any groups in US history.
High carbohydrate and high protein diets are now being directly linked to obesity, diabetes, Alzheimer’s (now being referred to as Type 3 Duabetes) Parkinson’s and other major human diseases, including the vast majority of cancers.
The Warburg Effect outlines the destruction of energy producing mitochondria in the cell’s, which is the mechanism that turns cell’s into the cancerous state. That destruction comes from high amounts of glucose, which is “dirty fuel” causing accumulated cellular destruction and metabolic decline. Lose the primary energy production in the cell’s and they lose the ability to be maintained properly. That metabolic decay is now being seen as the source of the launching point of most of our modern human diseases, that are not microbial based viral or bacterial caused diseases.
So, the horrifically stupid correlation study above, is very similar to the ignorance based, political power and funding driven actions, by organizations and politicians that created enormous human disease and early death.
Someday in the not too distant future, history will understand the corrupt Cabal of politicians, zealous special interest groups and their media allies, who have repeatedly used scare-tactics to drive political and funding objectives, that are once again not based in competent science and medical research.
The Scientific Method must be restored as the high ground of honest skeptical science reviews. The corrupt cabals of political zealots who prey on public ignorance and viciously attack good skeptical science, need to be exposed snd wherever possible, need to be have their power and funding diminished.
It is incredible and tragic how much death and disease the agenda-driven political and big government groups have inflicted upon the US and upon the world.
Yikes. Lots of typos in that comment. Should have read through it for corrective edits before hitting send.
Hopefully those typos won’t distract from the importance of the information. Please look past the typos and seriously consider the basis for the comments. That is, support for the scientific method’s honest skeptical reviews, over agendas driven by political extremism, wasteful government spending, harmful government power and politically-driven media extremism.
In the end, solid research is unlocking new understandings about the core causes of multiple terrible human diseases. There appears to be a common core issue of metabolic dysfunction, created by destruction of our energy producing mitochondria. Hopefully the result will be solid food guidelines which can help vast numbers of people around the world, live healthier lives.
Interestingly, that is also the “secret” to vastly lower healthcare costs. It is far more cost-effective to avoid major diseases in the first place, via modern understanding of much less destructive eating habits. Modern research is linking with much older research to create eating guidelines that match how are bodies work, which run contrary to what we were told for decades by anti-science government and extremist political groups, driven by power and funding and not science.
(There are lots of parallels to the modern Climate extremism for political power and funding, while abandoning the scientific method.)
So somehow the “new” research is true and the old stuff wrong? On what do you base that idea? The government is now feeding kids kale for lunches (which they dump in the trash) yet nothing changes. Maybe none of these research conclusions are true and we’re so far off from understanding nutrition and its affects as to be completely wrong with every study.
Yep, wife and I were “pre-diabetic” until we caught on to the upside-down food pyramid pushed by ignorant, government funded, scientists and politicians.
Carb blockers (actually starch blockers) make a low carb diet palatable.
RH, I too have been a fan of Dr. Phinney and have watched many of his videos. It a shame that a condition like diabetes can be such a tragedy when the solution for many people is diet based. Sadly my sister in law has been in the hospital for three weeks fighting an infection in her foot caused by her diabetes. The accepted treatment is metformin, insulin and more insulin or other meds to reduce blood sugar. The sugar is taken out of the blood but has to go somewhere and this causes a host of terrible effects in the lower joint, eyes and kidneys. My sister looks like she will keep her foot but she will still be in the hospital for weeks loaded with antibiotics.
To lower blood sugar the sugar (carbs) you eat have to be reduced. For those severely affected there are few safe carbs aside from fibre filled vegetables and some fruit. Patients that have the gastric bypass operation often have their diabetes get better in a hurray and this is because they can’t physically eat enough to raise their sugar levels.
Along with Dr. Phinney, Dr, Peter Attia also has a number of videos addressing blood sugar levels. He was a champion marathon swimmer who suffered from insulin resistance which causes diabetes.
Dr Jason Fung from Toronto treats patients with controlled diets and has successfully reduced or eliminated medication for many.
https://intensivedietarymanagement.com/ (Dr. Jason Fung)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sjJrXHWLP_M (Dr. Peter Attia)
If you like the videos they will lead to many more
Your body runs on glucose, dumbass.
All alarmists STAY INDOORS DO NOT SPEAK TO ANYONE. …well it’s a start.
When I was studying dentistry in the mid to late 70’s as well as dental topics we covered medicine and general surgery topics too. One day we had a lecture by a neurologist who told us that in the Northern Hemisphere the incidence of Multiple Sclerosis increased the higher the latitude, near the Equator it was almost unknown. He went on to add that there was no reliable data from the Southern Hemisphere to confirm if this was applicable there, but in the opposite direction and nobody knew why the disease was more prevalent the further north someone lived. Only recently it was discovered that a shortage of Vitamin D (produced by sunlight on human skin) was the cause. This was demonstrable by checking blood vitamin D levels in MS sufferers and comparing them to non-MS sufferers and it is fact that the sun shines more intensely the nearer you are to the Equator. This is good science, the junk science is when there are a whole host of variables such as minute to major exposure to temperature differences and also temperature tolerances between communities and individuals as there are in this case. Today’s Daily Telegraph spoke about this in sarcastic terms, telling its readers that if the lowered the temperature of their homes so they were actually shivering, they would burn an extra 400 calories per hour!
Ill-informed conjecture masquerading as science.
Well said andrewmharding. Thank you for your inputs.
vit D is also the common denominator for ‘excess winter deaths’.
I think there needs to be an award to the worst cause-&-effect correlation fallacy in science each year.
I nominate this study.
Second that
How would you choose only one????
i wholeheartedly agree such a prize should exist!
There is a little thing adding to the complexity. It is called genetics.
As it turns out, the genetic theory of cancer has been largely turned on its ear. There are genetic factors in a smaller percentage of cases. Perhaps 5 to 7 percent, by some reviews.
However recent research into the genetics of tens of thousands of tumor cells, did not support the common belief of genetic origins, that had been predominate for decades. It was a huge surprise to the researchers. They found lots of genetic variations in tumors. But, their is no statistical basis for the genetic progression assumptions that have driven cancer research.
When they found that their genetic cancer theories were not supported by the enormous amount of research – They used the Astro-physics “fudge-factor” term “dark matter” to indicate that there is another core cause that precedes and dominates the cancers. That “dark matter” effect that is not genetic, is now considered to be the Warburg Effect.
The Warburg Effect is driven by metabolic disfunction, as the result of destruction and decay of energy producing mitochondria in the cells, linked to high carbohydrate/high protein diets. Environmental toxins are also being linked to metabolic disfunction.
The genetic variations in tumor cells are more randomly being generated by high amounts of free radical destruction in the nucleus, combined with the cells’ loss of energy to repair the genetic variations. That’s why there are lots of genetic variations in tumors. The genetic variations in tumor cells are now largely seen to be the EFFECT of metabolic disfunction. The metabolic disfunction is the root cause of the variations and root cause of the lack of repair when the genetic variations occur.
The good news is, that this ushers in a whole new world of research options and less harmful protocols in the prevention and treatment of cancer and other major diseases. Time will tell which options best optimize prevention and treatment strategies as we move forward.
What is needed now is government funding of combination strategies, not just single, isolated drug testing protocols that currently dominate. For those who have a cancer death sentence, we owe them our best research efforts with new combination therapies, which exploit the common metabolic disfunction found in virtually all cancer cells.
The G.D. cult of CAGW will use any issue to push their propaganda. The type 2 diabetic epidemic has nothing to do with climate change.
Unbelievable, dangerous, super over consumption of refined sugar, fruit juice, and ‘processed’ grains as opposed to the consumption of whole grains, whole fruit, and vegetables is the cause of the type 2 diabetic epidemic.
It is a fact that now 30% of the new cases of type 2 diabetes in the US are in adolescences which is extraordinary as Type 2 diabetes was once a disease that occurred only among the middle aged and aged.
A doctor discussing the trend note that the US is set for a future epidemic of liver failure, blindness, limb amputation and so onto due to the extraordinary early onset of the type 2 diabetes.
Back of the envelope estimates show, that if no action is taken to address this problem, the entire current US budget will be required to ‘treat’ the complications of fatty liver ‘disease’.
How much G.D. refined sugar is put in processed food?
http://www.sugarstacks.com/beverages.htm
http://www.sugarstacks.com/candy.htm
http://www.sugarstacks.com/fruits.htm
http://www.sugarstacks.com/carrots.htm
http://www.sugarstacks.com/shakes.htm
Refined Sugar Consumption Trends in the Past 300 Years:
• In 1700, the average person consumed about 4 pounds of sugar per year.
• In 1800, the average person consumed about 18 pounds of sugar per year.
• In 1900, individual consumption had risen to 90 pounds of sugar per year.
• In 2009, more than 50 percent of Americans consume 1/2 pound of sugar per day, which is 180 pounds of sugar per year (ten times more than the amount of sugar consumed in 1800).
In 1890, the obesity rate in the US for white males, age group 50′s only, was 3.4%.
In 1975, the obesity rate in the US of all population was 15%.
In 2009, 32% of Americans were obese.
In 1893, there were fewer than 3 diabetics per 100,000 people in US. Today, there are 8,000 diabetics per 100,000 people in US (roughly 1 in 10).
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22129639
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23482247
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22129639
At best, the study demonstrates its inability to find a clean correlation – South Carolina and Louisiana figures discredit the entire study results. Also the twofold difference between U.S. and global rates also discredits any claims made by the study. It should be obvious that the differences claimed are so tiny and the fact that little confidence can be placed upon them, should have led the authors of the study to seriously doubt any significant affect of temps on diabetes. If nothing else, the study shows that diabetes is largely or perhaps totally unaffected by temps and that natural experiments like these have left uncontrolled so many variables that they should not even be paid attention to in the absence of large correlations,and significant effects (NOT statistically significant effects, which depend heavilly upon sample size and which are often unrelated to actually significant effects). “Statistical significance” is widely misinterpreted by the statistically challenged as meaning “significant effects.” It does not mean that.
It seems odd to me that the abstract reports the 0.314 per 1000 instead of the obesity adjusted 0.290. I appreciate they aren’t that different, but when you’ve done the analysis for a known co-founder, why not use that figure instead.
More curious to me is the information being concentrated on here — Table 1 shows the error bars for the effect of a 1C rise in temperature for each state analyzed, complete with confidence intervals that almost invariably include zero. But as the article states the change in annual mean varied from -0.11C (Minnesota) to +0.09C (Hawaii). The actual change was *far* less than the 1C being presented for the outliers. The actual temperature-change-related effect for extreme warmer Hawaii looks to be around 0.060 per 1000 and for extreme cooler Minnesota around 0.050 per 1000. These are very small effects.
But why look specifically for those small effects? The proposed mechanism for the effect is a sensitivity to actual *temperature*, not temperature change. There are *large* differences in mean temperature between the states, so if the causal mechanism is significant enough to detect increased diabetes from a tiny temperature differential, it should produce massive and obvious differences from a large temperature differential. Why not use age-and-obesity adjusted diabetes levels from each of the states and correlate them directly against temperature? As figure 2 shows, the difference in mean temperatures between states can be over 20C — why not pluck the low-hanging fruit and test for the effect of this *massive* change instead of trying to tease out a signal from changes of a tenth of a degree or less.
Speaking of figure 2, it states “As can be appreciated from this figure, the diabetes incidence rate increases in most states with higher mean annual temperature, while there is no apparent geographical pattern which could explain this association.” I’m not seeing that from the figure, which represents the diabetes incidence rate increases only by a limited set of circle sizes, with color (red/blue for increase/decrease) hard to see against the red/blue colored temperature background. The largest circles are in Lousiana (decrease), South Carolina (increase), Oregon (decrease) and South Dakota (increase). Yes, there’s no geographical pattern to those four states, but there’s certainly no relationship to higher mean temperature — and higher mean temperature *does* have *marked* geographical pattern. Broaden as I will, I’m still not seeing what they’re seeing. States south of the Mason-Dixon line seem pretty evenly distributed on figure one to me.
If diabetes is more likely with increased temperature, the possible implications from a theoretical 1C rise in the future are dwarfed by the substantial (and voluntary) population migration from colder to warmer states that has been going on for many decades now in this country. This somehow isn’t mentioned in the conclusions though it does take the time to mention “a new record set for the warmest winter in the USA last year.” Nothing in the article to that point mentioned seasonality being important.
Even the NIH says that weak correlations like this are meaningless unless there is a plausible biological mechanism posited to explain it (and there isn’t in this case). This is the worst kind of data-mining junk science. Clearly they were just hitching a ride on the CAGW gravy train. Just one more example why President Trump is right to derail it.
Then more people in Cuba would have diabetes than Minnesota…..right?
nope….
Yea and Global Warming has caused a catastrophic shortage of Bulgarian prostitutes and an overabundance of German cats.
Extra, extra! Read all about it!!! Killlllllllllerrrrrrrrrrrrrrr Ayyyyyyyyy ….. geeeeeeeee …. double youuuuuuuuuuu! Gives you diabetes!!!! Read all about it!
So diabetes is more prevalent in Kuwait, Saudi, and Southern India. Right?
Climate alarmist is framed around an all-encompassing garden of eden / catastrophic fall narrative. This fits into it.
I guess one could conclude from the study that to reduce the chance of diabetes you should lower the house thermostat a degree or two. .
The only need to lower it 0.1C every 10 years.
Sorry for my idiot comment. No sarcasm please. The study pertain to GW not Temperature. So is the “Avarage of temperature” not the temperature it self that cause diabetes.
This are things that only “educated” alarmist can “see” and I’m not one of them. (need sarc label?).
While I have said this before, they have now truly jumped the shark!
http://www.hockeyspy.ca/wp-content/uploads/2016/01/shark.jpg
This should become the classic example, used in university lectures, to demonstrate that correlation does NOT equal causation.
OT … that has got to be the worst Photoshop I’ve ever seen.
I must admit I am confused.
The study claims that incidences of diabetes increase linearly with body temperature, but I can’t find any actual studies that show this. And I can’t see that slight variations in climate are the same as body temperature….
Sigh,
This is the same “best known method”
……that takes new borns
=> and puts them in isolation chambers
manipulated by automatons
(OK, it is people dressed up as automatons),
because they are “paid” to keep the babies alive…today.
The result is?
Who knows.
Pheromones impacting Gender bonding? Mate identification?
during the first day or two of post partum?
…..not known, not “important” to get paid.
But this practice started, big time, 70 years ago.
What “not usual” behaviors have we seen during the past 50 years
…. that have become rampant in the past 10?
……at least according to the propaganda from the “all knowing” urban clueless wonders.
And diabetes is almost exclusively in folk with BMI > 25.
But, they don’t get paid for that.
They “religiously believe” that it is due to the weather.
So, the authors studied temperature and diabetes. They found very little correlation and absolutely no causation.
Nevertheless, they were able to construct a scary headline in support of the AGW fairy story.
If increasing temperature had any effect on diabetes or any other disease, the incidence would perfectly correlate to the average temperature in that locale. There would be a big difference between Florida and Alaska, with all the other states aligned in between. The fact that the correlations are apparently a random order of states implies there is no possibility the conclusion of this study could be correct.