988-P: Higher Environmental Pollution Burden Scores Associate with Lower Insulin Sensitivity in Minority Children with Overweight and Obesity

Background: Epidemiological evidence in children suggests that environmental pollution, such as ambient and traffic air pollution exposure, is associated with type 2 diabetes risk; however cumulative exposure to various environmental pollutants has not been well examined. The objective of this study was to determine if cumulative measures of environmental pollutants were associated with insulin sensitivity (SI) , acute insulin response (AIR) and disposition index (DI) in minority children.

Methods: Participants (N=135, M_age= 14.4 ± 2.9 years; 59% male; 57% Latinx and 43% Black) had a 13-time point frequently sampled intravenous glucose tolerance test. Glucose and insulin values were used in minimal modelling (MinMod Millennium) for determination of SI, AIR, and DI. Self-reported mailing addresses were geocoded to identify census tract number and associated pollution burden scores (1-10) derived by CalEnviroScreen 3.0 (CES 3.0) . Multivariable linear regression was used to test relationships while considering for age, ethnicity, sex, and total body fat percentage (by DEXA) . Due to positive skewness, SI, AIR and DI were natural log transformed.

Results: Higher pollution burden score was associated with lower lnSI, after adjusting for covariates (β= -0.150, 95%CI= -0.280, -0.020, p=0.024) . There was a positive, but non-significant association with pollution burden score and lnAIR (β= 0.114, 95%CI= -0.006, 2.35, p=0.063) . An inverse, but non-significant, association was observed between pollution burden scores and lnDI (β= -0.34, 95%CI= -.140, 0.71, p=0.518) .

Conclusion: Using a publicly available environmental pollution risk score, we show that high environmental pollution exposures associated with lower SI, but not AIR or DI. Our findings provide further evidence of the link between ambient environmental factors and type 2 diabetes risk.