There is a strange new reason for county leaders to care about eliminating congestion and other contributors to traffic-related air pollution: it causes diabetes.
A new study published in The Lancet Planetary Health – the “largest of its kind,” 
according to The Atlantic – attributes 16 percent of the world’s diabetes cases to air pollution. According to the study, 8.2 million years of healthy life were lost in 2016 alone, globally, to pollution-linked diabetes.
The study controlled for obesity-related factors, “so it wasn’t the case that heavier people simply lived in more polluted neighborhoods and were also more likely to get diabetes,” according to The Atlantic. It zeroes in on tiny particles known as PM2.5, The largest source of these – at least in the United States – are car and truck emissions.
