TY - JOUR T1 - Exposure to cholinesterase inhibiting insecticides and blood glucose level in a population of Ugandan smallholder farmers JF - Occupational and Environmental Medicine JO - Occup Environ Med SP - 713 LP - 720 DO - 10.1136/oemed-2020-106439 VL - 77 IS - 10 AU - Martin Rune Hassan Hansen AU - Erik Jørs AU - Annelli Sandbæk AU - Daniel Sekabojja AU - John C Ssempebwa AU - Ruth Mubeezi AU - Philipp Staudacher AU - Samuel Fuhrimann AU - Alex Burdorf AU - Bo Martin Bibby AU - Vivi Schlünssen Y1 - 2020/10/01 UR - http://oem.bmj.com/content/77/10/713.abstract N2 - Objectives The risk of diabetes mellitus may be elevated among persons exposed to some pesticides, including cholinesterase-inhibiting insecticides (organophosphates and carbamates). The objective of this study was to investigate how acetylcholinesterase activity was associated with mean blood glucose levels among smallholder farmers in Uganda.Methods We conducted a short-term follow-up study among 364 smallholder farmers in Uganda. Participants were examined three times from September 2018 to February 2019. At each visit, we measured glycosylated haemoglobin A (HbA1c) as a measure of long-term average blood glucose levels. Exposure to organophosphate and carbamate insecticides was quantified using erythrocyte acetylcholinesterase normalised by haemoglobin (AChE/Hb). For a subgroup of participants, fasting plasma glucose (FPG) was also available. We analysed HbA1c and FPG versus AChE/Hb in linear mixed and fixed effect models adjusting for age, sex, physical activity level, and consumption of fruits and vegetables, alcohol and tobacco.Results Contrary to our hypothesis, our mixed effect models showed significant correlation between low AChE/Hb and low HbA1c. Adjusted mean HbA1c was 0.74 (95% CI 0.17 to 1.31) mmol/mol lower for subjects with AChE/Hb=24.3 U/g (35th percentile) compared with subjects with AChE/Hb=25.8 U/g (50th percentile). Similar results were demonstrated for FPG. Fixed effect models showed less clear correlations for between-phase changes in AChE/Hb and HbA1c.Conclusions Our results do not clearly support a causal link between exposure to cholinesterase-inhibiting insecticides and elevated blood glucose levels (expressed as HbA1c and FPG), but results should be interpreted with caution due to the risk of reverse causality. ER -