 Finding higher diabetes rates among those heavily exposed to toxic pollutants, Agent Orange exposure, chemical plant explosions, living next to a toxic waste dump, or eating fish out of the Great Lakes, that's one thing. But would the same link be found in just a random sample of the general population? Yes, a strong, dose-dependent relationship between the levels of these pollutants circulating people's blood and diabetes. Those with the highest levels of pollutants in their bloodstream had 38 times the odds of diabetes. Interestingly, there was no association between obesity and diabetes among subjects with non-detectable levels of pollutants. In other words, obesity was a risk factor for diabetes only if people had blood concentrations of these pollutants above a certain level. We all know obesity predisposes us to diabetes, but according to the study, only if our bodies are polluted, only perhaps if the fact that we're carrying is carrying chemicals. This finding kind of implies that virtually all the risk of diabetes conferred by obesity is attributable to these pollutants, and that obesity might only be a vehicle for such chemicals. Could we be carrying around our own little toxic waste dump on our hips? This possibility is shocking. Now, it's entirely possible that the six pollutants they looked at are not themselves causally related to diabetes. Maybe they're just surrogates of exposure to a mixture of chemicals. After all, 90% of these pollutants come from animal foods in the general population. Except for individuals living or working around industrial sites where these chemicals were used or dumped, the most common source of exposure to PCBs is from diet, with foods of animal origin, especially seafood. So the strong relationship they found between certain pollutants and diabetes may just be pointing to other contaminants in animal products.