NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - People who have been exposed to high levels of toxic polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) may face an elevated risk of type 2 diabetes, a new study shows.

The findings, reported in the journal Diabetes Care, come from a long-term study of Taiwanese adults who, in the 1970s, had been poisoned by cooking oil contaminated with PCB pollutants.

Once used in products ranging from fluorescent lights and appliances to insulation and insecticide, PCBs were banned in the late 1970s as carcinogens and general health hazards. They linger in the environment, however.

In the new study, Dr. Yueliang Leon Guo, from the National Taiwan University in Taipei, and colleagues examined the incidence of type 2 diabetes among 378 Taiwanese "oil disease" victims and 370 of their neighbours who had not been poisoned.

They found that women who had been exposed to the PCB-laced oil were twice as likely as other women to develop type 2 diabetes over 24 years. And women who had been most severely affected by the PCB exposure had a more than five-times higher diabetes risk.

There were no similar risks seen in men, however.