Why smoking and vaping can worsen your diabetes

From indianexpress.com

Dr V Mohan, Chairman, Dr Mohan’s Diabetes Specialities Centre, Chennai, on why you need to kick the butt now

For a long time through these columns, I have been trying to explain why smoking is the worst enemy of people with diabetes and needs to be given up at the earliest. Both conditions independently increase the risk of many diseases and together, these risks are almost quadrupled. For each day you delay in giving up smoking, the nicotine addiction gets deeper and your goal to kick the habit just gets pushed further.

Nothing illustrates this better than two case studies. One of them was a chronic smoker friend of mine, who developed throat cancer, but couldn’t control his nicotine craving and began smoking during radiotherapy itself. The other was a Sri Lankan patient of mine, a chronic smoker who had diabetes and went on to develop diabetic foot rather quickly, a condition where your feet can get ulcerous and infection-prone as blood sugar damages your nerves and cells. He was just 30 when he had already developed gangrene in his feet. I barely managed to save his foot and let him off with a warning that even one cigarette a day would push him over the edge. In a month, he came back to see me with a gangrene, saying he could go through amputation but couldn’t stop smoking. Such is the power of addiction.

SMOKING AND DIABETES: A DOUBLE WHAMMY

Smokers are three times more at risk of developing diabetes than non-smokers. That’s because cigarettes are made with chemicals, many of which can even cause cancer. But primarily all of them result in inflammation and build oxidative stress (more free radicals than antioxidants) in several organs, damaging blood vessels. They cause insulin resistance in the liver, muscles and adipose tissue. They also affect functioning of the pancreas and increase the risk of chronic pancreatitis, which is a cause of secondary diabetes. Insulin may help blood sugar enter cells but nicotine changes cells, so they don’t respond to insulin, which increases blood sugar levels. Smoking also puts people with diabetes at a high risk of malignancies, mostly pancreatic, oral, stomach and bladder cancers.

Both cigarettes and tobacco that is chewed can cause vasoconstriction, or a narrowing of blood vessels, leading to lack of blood supply to vital organs. Inflammation begins as an irritant and when chronic, triggers multiple diseases, primarily heart disease.

Many patients of mine say they have resorted to vaping, considering its lower concentration of nicotine. Truth is, it is just as bad. Nicotine is addictive, period. E-liquids can contain sugars that have the potential to raise your blood sugar levels. A study published in March 2022 in The American Journal of Preventive Medicine and conducted by researchers from Johns Hopkins showed that e-cigarette use might increase a person’s risk of elevated blood glucose levels. Those who vape have a 22 per cent increased risk of developing prediabetes compared with those who do not.

Fortunately, targeted lifestyle changes can help manage diabetes and wean you off smoking. So focus on diet, exercise, sleep and reducing stress. The sooner you give up smoking, the sooner your body can start to heal.

https://indianexpress.com/article/health-wellness/why-smoking-and-vaping-can-worsen-your-diabetes-9415684/