CHICAGO - In a scientific statement, leaders at the American Diabetes Association said that diabetes risk factors go beyond biology and individual risk factors and include social and environmental influences.
"It is essential to better understand how social and environmental variables influence behaviors that lead to obesity, prediabetes, and diabetes and to learn how to modify these variables to prevent and manage them," they wrote.
They said that although research in this area is associational in nature, "the amount of data linking these factors is substantial."
Dr. Robert E. Ratner, ADA's chief science and medical officer and a member of the statement's writing committee, expanded upon the article in a video interview.