ArticlePloS one2010
An Environment-Wide Association Study (EWAS) on type 2 diabetes mellitus.
Article in PloS one, 2010. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 292 papers, 7 of them syntheses that pooled it.
What it found
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The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
292 citing papers in PubMed, 7 syntheses or guidelines pooled it, 579 citations in OpenAlex.
- Environmental exposures in autoimmune inflammatory rheumatic diseases: a priority-based evidence map, immune-mechanism integration audit and research agenda.Frontiers in immunology · 2026Pooled it
- The association between environmental exposures to chlordanes, adiposity and diabetes-related features: a systematic review and meta-analysis.Scientific reports · 2021Pooled it
- Non-genetic risk and protective factors and biomarkers for neurological disorders: a meta-umbrella systematic review of umbrella reviews.BMC medicine · 2021Pooled it
- Design and methodology challenges of environment-wide association studies: A systematic review.Environmental research · 2020Pooled it
- Environment-Wide Association Study of Blood Pressure in the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (1999-2012).Scientific reports · 2016Pooled it
- Field-wide meta-analyses of observational associations can map selective availability of risk factors and the impact of model specifications.Journal of clinical epidemiology · 2016Pooled it
- Nutrient-wide association study of 57 foods/nutrients and epithelial ovarian cancer in the European Prospective Investigation into Cancer and Nutrition study and the Netherlands Cohort Study.The American journal of clinical nutrition · 2016Pooled it
- What makes a lonely child: environmental, health, and multimodal neuroimaging correlates of prospective loneliness in the ABCD study.Journal of child psychology and psychiatry, and allied disciplines · 2026Article
- Exposome-wide association study and predictive risk score for incident Alzheimer's disease and related dementias.Alzheimer's & dementia : the journal of the Alzheimer's Association · 2026Article
- Vision for Exposomics-Scale Investigation: A Heuristic for Exposure-Wide Association Studies (ExWAS).Environmental science & technology · 2026Review
- Bridging population and cell: modelling complex diseases with human induced pluripotent stem cells.European journal of human genetics : EJHG · 2026Review
- Relevance and challenges of exposome studies for environmental health research.Environmental health : a global access science source · 2026Review
- Bridging the life-course exposome approach with a life-cycle perspective in safe and sustainable by design (SSbD) for chemical risk.Human genomics · 2026Article
- An atlas of exposome-phenome associations in health and disease risk.Nature medicine · 2026Article
- Translating multi-omics into healthcare: requisites for scalable and equitable implementation.Human genomics · 2026Review
- Predicting toxicity and bioactivity of the chemical exposome: a case study for the blood exposome database.Journal of cheminformatics · 2026Article
- A biobank-scale method for learning modulators of gene-environment interaction underlying human complex traits from multiple environmental exposures.bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 2026Article
- Organic Pollutants and Risk of Type 2 Diabetes: A Systematic Review and Meta-analysis.Mayo Clinic proceedings. Innovations, quality & outcomes · 2026Article
- Pesticides associated with incident diabetes among licensed private pesticide applicators in the Agricultural Health Study cohort (1993-2021).Environment international · 2026Article
- Identifying direct risk factors in UK Biobank via simultaneous Bayesian-frequentist model-averaged hypothesis testing using Doublethink.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2026Article
232 more citing papers are in PubMed but not listed here.
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
3 authors at 1 institution in 1 country.
Funding
Abstract
backgroundType 2 Diabetes (T2D) and other chronic diseases are caused by a complex combination of many genetic and environmental factors. Few methods are available to comprehensively associate specific physical environmental factors with disease. We conducted a pilot Environmental-Wide Association Study (EWAS), in which epidemiological data are comprehensively and systematically interpreted in a manner analogous to a Genome Wide Association Study (GWAS). METHODS AND
findingsWe performed multiple cross-sectional analyses associating 266 unique environmental factors with clinical status for T2D defined by fasting blood sugar (FBG) concentration > or =126 mg/dL. We utilized available Centers for Disease Control (CDC) National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES) cohorts from years 1999 to 2006. Within cohort sample numbers ranged from 503 to 3,318. Logistic regression models were adjusted for age, sex, body mass index (BMI), ethnicity, and an estimate of socioeconomic status (SES). As in GWAS, multiple comparisons were controlled and significant findings were validated with other cohorts. We discovered significant associations for the pesticide-derivative heptachlor epoxide (adjusted OR in three combined cohorts of 1.7 for a 1 SD change in exposure amount; p<0.001), and the vitamin gamma-tocopherol (adjusted OR 1.5; p<0.001). Higher concentrations of polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) such as PCB170 (adjusted OR 2.2; p<0.001) were also found. Protective factors associated with T2D included beta-carotenes (adjusted OR 0.6; p<0.001). CONCLUSIONS AND SIGNIFICANCE: Despite difficulty in ascertaining causality, the potential for novel factors of large effect associated with T2D justify the use of EWAS to create hypotheses regarding the broad contribution of the environment to disease. Even in this study based on prior collected epidemiological measures, environmental factors can be found with effect sizes comparable to the best loci yet found by GWAS.
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Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.