High relative environmental humidity is associated with diabetes among elders living in Mediterranean islands

Journal of Diabetes & Metabolic Disorders

Demosthenes Panagiotakos²  Evangelos Polychronopoulos²  Christos Lionis⁵  Vassiliki Bountziouka²  George Metallinos²  Efthimios Gotsis²  Akis Zeimbekis¹  Nikos Tsakountakis⁵  Kleomenis Kalogeropoulos³  Marianthi Morena³  Christos Chalkias³  Stefanos Tyrovolas⁴ 

[1] Health Center of Kalloni, General Hospital of Mitilini, Mitilini, Greece;Department of Nutrition and Dietetics, Harokopio University, 46 Paleon Polemiston St., Glyfada, 166 74, Attica, Athens, Greece;Department of Geography, Harokopio University, Athens, Greece;Parc Sanitari Sant Joan de Déu, Fundació Sant Joan de Déu, CIBERSAM, Universitat de Barcelona, Dr Antoni Pujades, 42, 08830, Sant Boi de Llobregat, Barcelona, Spain;Clinic of Social and Family Medicine, School of Medicine, University of Crete, Heraklion, Greece

关键词: Mediterranean islands;    Diet;    Elderly;    Diabetes;    Temperature;    Relative humidity;   

Others  :  806248
DOI  :  10.1186/2251-6581-13-25

 received in 2013-09-05, accepted in 2014-01-13,  发布年份 2014

【 摘 要 】

Background

Climate variation has long been studied in relation to human health. The aim of the present work was to evaluate the relationship between environmental humidity, and air temperature with the prevalence of diabetes, among elderly islanders.

Methods

During 2005–2011, 1959 elderly (aged 65 to 100 years) individuals from 13 Mediterranean islands were enrolled. Socio-demographic, clinical and lifestyle factors were assessed using standard procedures. Diabetes was defined as fasting blood glucose levels > 125 mg/dl. Relative environmental humidity was measured as a percentage of air moisture and mean daily temperature in degrees Celsius.

Results

For the present analysis 713 men (74 ± 7 years) and 596 women (73 ± 7 years) with complete data were studied; 27% of both men and women had diabetes. The prevalence of diabetes was 42% in the elders living in high relative humidity areas (i.e., >70%) as compared with 24% among those living at low relative humidity residential areas (p < 0.001). After adjusting for age, sex and mean temperature, an increase in the area’s relative humidity by 1 degree, increased the likelihood of having diabetes by 12% (OR = 1.12, 95% CI 1.05 to 1.20). No significant association was observed between mean temperature and diabetes (OR = 0.97, 95% CI 0.74, 1.26).

Conclusions

A considerable proportion of elderly, especially those living in high relative humidity areas, had diabetes. Further research is needed to confirm this observation and to understand the underlying mechanisms.

【 授权许可】

   
2014 Tyrovolas et al.; licensee BioMed Central Ltd.

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