Blood levels of PFAS (“forever chemicals”) were linked to about a 31 % increased future risk of type 2 diabetes.
The study compared 180 newly diagnosed diabetes cases with 180 matched non‑diabetic controls from Mount Sinai’s BioMe cohort.
Metabolic disruptions in amino-acid and drug-processing pathways may offer clues to how PFAS interfere with blood sugar regulation.
Per‑ and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS), or “forever chemicals,” have gotten a lot of attention recently for the plethora of health risks associated with them.
Now, a new study from Mount Sinai suggests that PFAS exposure may quietly raise your risk of developing type 2 diabetes.
“PFAS are synthetic chemicals that resist heat, oil, water, and stains, and are found in countless everyday consumer products,” researcher Vishal Midya, Ph.D., M.Stat., said in a news release.
“Because they don’t break down easily, PFAS accumulate in the environment — and in human bodies. Our study is one of the first to examine how these chemicals may disrupt the body’s metabolism in ways that increase diabetes risk — particularly in diverse U.S. populations.”
The study
The research team conducted the study using BioMe, a health‑record linked biobank that has enrolled over 70,000 people at Mount Sinai Hospital since 2007.
They selected 180 individuals recently diagnosed with type 2 diabetes and matched them with 180 similar participants (same age, sex, ancestry) who did not have diabetes.
Blood samples from all participants were tested for PFAS levels. The researchers then examined how increasing PFAS exposure related to subsequent diabetes risk, while also exploring metabolic signatures in pathways tied to amino‑acid biosynthesis and drug metabolism.
The results
The key finding: For each step up in PFAS exposure (e.g. from low to moderate, moderate to high), there was a 31 % higher risk of developing type 2 diabetes later on.
While the study can’t prove PFAS causes diabetes directly, it did find signs that PFAS may disrupt critical metabolic processes — specifically amino‑acid biosynthesis and drug metabolism — which are intimately involved in regulating blood sugar.
“This research leverages an exposomics framework to characterize environmental impacts and associated metabolic alterations contributing to the development of type 2 diabetes in vulnerable U.S. populations,” researcher Damaskini Valvi, M.D., Ph.D., MPH, said in the news release.
“These findings can help us design more effective interventions for the early prevention of type 2 diabetes in the future, taking into account individuals’ exposures to environmental chemicals along with other well-known genetic, clinical, and lifestyle factors implicated in diabetes development. Mounting research suggests that PFAS are a risk factor for several chronic diseases, such as obesity, liver disease, and diabetes.”