ArticlePLoS medicine2013
Association of lifecourse socioeconomic status with chronic inflammation and type 2 diabetes risk: the Whitehall II prospective cohort study.
Article in PLoS medicine, 2013. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 115 papers, 5 of them syntheses that pooled it.
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Who cites it
115 citing papers in PubMed, 5 syntheses or guidelines pooled it, 199 citations in OpenAlex.
- Impact of Telehealth Care among Adults Living with Type 2 Diabetes in Primary Care: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis of Randomised Controlled Trials.International journal of environmental research and public health · 2021Pooled it
- The association of neutrophil to lymphocyte ratio, mean platelet volume, and platelet distribution width with diabetic retinopathy and nephropathy: a meta-analysis.Bioscience reports · 2018Pooled it
- Socioeconomic status in childhood and C reactive protein in adulthood: a systematic review and meta-analysis.Journal of epidemiology and community health · 2017Pooled it
- Intergenerational social mobility and leisure-time physical activity in adulthood: a systematic review.Journal of epidemiology and community health · 2017Pooled it
- Childhood socioeconomic position and adult leisure-time physical activity: a systematic review.The international journal of behavioral nutrition and physical activity · 2015Pooled it
- Socio-economic factors, mood, primary care utilization, and quality of life as predictors of intervention cessation and chronic stress in a type 2 diabetes prevention intervention (PREVIEW Study).BMC public health · 2023Trial
- The effect of beta-adrenergic blockade on inflammatory and cardiovascular responses to acute mental stress.Brain, behavior, and immunity · 2018Trial
- Socioeconomic Disadvantage Moderates the Association between Peripheral Biomarkers and Childhood Psychopathology.PloS one · 2016Trial
- Prognostic subgroups for remission and response in the Coordinated Anxiety Learning and Management (CALM) trial.The Journal of clinical psychiatry · 2015Trial
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- Trends in self-reported current diabetes care use, socioeconomic inequalities, and associated factors in Japan: evidence from the Comprehensive Survey of Living Conditions (1986-2022).BMJ open diabetes research & care · 2026Article
- Cytokine Profiles as Molecular Markers Associated with Physical Exercise and Insulin Therapy in Patients with Type 2 Diabetes Mellitus.Current issues in molecular biology · 2026Article
- Adaptive immune responses to vaccination reflect social status at first exposure in female rhesus macaques.bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 2026Article
- Associations Between Cardiovascular Risk Factors and Neurofilament Light Levels Among US Mexican American Adults.Brain and behavior · 2026Article
- Comprehensive evaluation of the prevalent insulin resistance indices for pan-cancer incidence and mortality prediction.Tropical medicine and health · 2025Article
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- Bayesian analysis of non-communicable diseases risk factors: a focus on the lower-educated population in Bangladesh.International health · 2025Article
- Social determinants of health and type 2 diabetes in Asia.Journal of diabetes investigation · 2025Review
- Ten-year trajectories of ultra-processed food intake and prospective associations with cardiovascular diseases and all-cause mortality: findings from the Whitehall II cohort study.Nutrition journal · 2025Article
- Social disadvantage accelerates aging.Nature medicine · 2025Article
55 more citing papers are in PubMed but not listed here.
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Authors and funding
8 authors at 2 institutions in 3 countries.
Funding
Abstract
backgroundSocioeconomic adversity in early life has been hypothesized to "program" a vulnerable phenotype with exaggerated inflammatory responses, so increasing the risk of developing type 2 diabetes in adulthood. The aim of this study is to test this hypothesis by assessing the extent to which the association between lifecourse socioeconomic status and type 2 diabetes incidence is explained by chronic inflammation. METHODS AND
findingsWe use data from the British Whitehall II study, a prospective occupational cohort of adults established in 1985. The inflammatory markers C-reactive protein and interleukin-6 were measured repeatedly and type 2 diabetes incidence (new cases) was monitored over an 18-year follow-up (from 1991-1993 until 2007-2009). Our analytical sample consisted of 6,387 non-diabetic participants (1,818 women), of whom 731 (207 women) developed type 2 diabetes over the follow-up. Cumulative exposure to low socioeconomic status from childhood to middle age was associated with an increased risk of developing type 2 diabetes in adulthood (hazard ratio [HR] = 1.96, 95% confidence interval: 1.48-2.58 for low cumulative lifecourse socioeconomic score and HR = 1.55, 95% confidence interval: 1.26-1.91 for low-low socioeconomic trajectory). 25% of the excess risk associated with cumulative socioeconomic adversity across the lifecourse and 32% of the excess risk associated with low-low socioeconomic trajectory was attributable to chronically elevated inflammation (95% confidence intervals 16%-58%).
conclusionsIn the present study, chronic inflammation explained a substantial part of the association between lifecourse socioeconomic disadvantage and type 2 diabetes. Further studies should be performed to confirm these findings in population-based samples, as the Whitehall II cohort is not representative of the general population, and to examine the extent to which social inequalities attributable to chronic inflammation are reversible.
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