Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease, Asthma, and Risk of Type 2 Diabetes in Women

OBJECTIVE—Inflammation plays a key role in chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) and asthma. Increasing evidence points toward a role of inflammation in the pathogenesis of type 2 diabetes. We wanted to determine the relation of COPD and asthma with the development of type 2 diabetes. RESEARCH DESIGN AND METHODS—The Nurses’ Health Study is a prospective cohort study. From 1988–1996, 103,614 female nurses were asked biennially about a physician diagnosis of emphysema, chronic bronchitis, asthma, and diabetes. RESULTS—During 8 years of follow-up, we documented a total of 2,959 new cases of type 2 diabetes. The risk of type 2 diabetes was significantly higher for patients with COPD than those without (multivariate relative risk 1.8, 95% CI 1.1–2.8). By contrast, the risk of type 2 diabetes among asthmatic patients was not increased (1.0, 0.8–1.2). The asthma results remained nonsignificant even when we evaluated diabetes risk by duration of asthma exposure. CONCLUSIONS—Our findings suggest that COPD may be a risk factor for developing type 2 diabetes. Differences in the inflammation and cytokine profile between COPD and asthma might explain why COPD, but not asthma, is associated with increased risk of type 2 diabetes.