EDITOR’S SUMMARY: Environmental toxins, particularly benzene, are linked to the rise of type 2 diabetes, showing that the danger goes far beyond just sugar and grain flours. Chemical exposure from various sources may significantly contribute to diabetes development. The impact of processed foods on gut health and metabolic function is also explored. Emphasis is placed on the importance of lifestyle changes, including detoxification and microbiome support, to reduce the risk of diabetes.
By Karen Harrington
“In 1865 Friedrich August Kekulé woke up from a strange dream: he imagined a snake forming a circle and biting its own tail.” Kekulé had been working on elucidating the chemical structure of benzene, a common volatile organic compound (VOC)—a carbon-based chemical that readily evaporates into the air at room temperature. The dream helped him realize that the structure was circular—a hexagon of carbons and hydrogens, to be exact. The meaning of Kekulé’s dream, however, seems to go beyond chemistry. The image of a snake biting its tail—known as the ouroboros—originated in ancient Egypt and Greece and has been used in many mystical traditions to represent the eternal cycle of death and rebirth. Benzene is now known to be released during volcanic eruptions—perhaps one of nature’s most dramatic examples of destruction followed by the creation of fertile ground for new life. Benzene is also released in wood smoke, and thus humans have had increased exposure to it since they first started lighting their own fires. Your body can detoxify small amounts of benzene, but the levels you’re currently exposed to have far outpaced that natural capacity—linking it more with illness and death than any notion of rebirth.
Benzene pollution in the United States began to rise with the growth of heavy industry and the widespread use of automobiles in the early 20th century. In the 1940s, cigarette smoking—another major source of benzene exposure for both smokers and bystanders—increased sharply. Smoking began to decline in the early 1980s—just in time for a new and even more significant source of benzene: the BTEX blend (benzene, toluene, ethylbenzene, and xylene), which was added to gasoline to improve engine performance as lead was phased out. While BTEX levels in gasoline are lower today than they were in the early 2000s, outdoor air pollution still exposes you—if you live in the United States—to an average of 6.5 micrograms of benzene each day. When driving in traffic, your exposure to benzene can be up to 40% higher. Indoors, the average outgassing from building materials and room contents adds about 28 micrograms to your daily intake. However, a recently renovated home with fresh paint and materials could have levels up to 100 times higher. Benzene levels indoors can also rise if you burn petroleum-based wax candles or use air fresheners. Additionally, filling up at the gas station could expose you to another 32 micrograms of benzene. Burning tobacco—whether through cigarettes, vaping devices, or hookahs—can add up to 2,000 micrograms of benzene to your daily load, while housemates may absorb around 100 micrograms through secondhand smoke.
Your personal care products—such as deodorants, shampoos, hair dyes, sunscreens, creams, toothpastes, soaps, and detergents—can add even more benzene to your daily burden. These products often contain petroleum-based propellants and/or ingredients. For example, sodium benzoate—a common preservative even in products labeled organic or natural—can convert into benzene, depending on storage conditions and its interaction with other ingredients. For the average American, the use of personal care products can create benzene concentrations up to 14 times higher than normal indoor levels. This can be inhaled as the product evaporates—by both the user and those nearby—and absorbed through the skin. Other key chemicals that may convert to benzene include benzoyl acid, benzyl alcohol, potassium benzoate, and other ingredients with “benz” in their names.
Sodium and potassium benzoate are not only found in personal care products but are also used to preserve foods. The conversion of these preservatives to benzene in soda, juice, and other drinks became particularly problematic before the issue gained attention in the early 2000s. Most drinks today contain less than two micrograms of benzene per 12-ounce serving, which is still five times higher than California’s drinking water standard. Benzene can also leach into food packaged in Styrofoam, polypropylene plastic (plastic #5), or food-grade waxes. Particularly high benzene levels have been found in olives and pickles sold in plastic containers. Benzene can also form independently of petroleum products due to reactions that occur during the processing of natural foods. While fresh carrot juice does not contain benzene, bottled, pasteurized carrot juice often does—presumably due to chemical reactions that occur during the heating process. Smoking meat or fish can create benzene. Canning fish, particularly when it’s done in oil, can also produce benzene, as the heating of food oils to high temperatures triggers its formation. Deep frying food in your kitchen can also create benzene for the same reason.
Benzene’s Impact on Blood Sugar
For years, the primary health risk from benzene to the general public was thought to be leukemia. More recently, researchers have discovered that its effects are much broader. Long-term environmental exposure to benzene has been linked to mortality from cardiovascular disease, respiratory disease, and all types of cancer. Benzene exposure has been linked to hypertension, and recent research identifies it as a significant contributor to the type 2 diabetes and prediabetes epidemics. Although type 2 diabetes is often attributed to poor diet and lack of exercise, a growing body of scientific literature suggests an environmental cause for the rapid increase in cases during the second half of the 20th century. There are many indications that diet alone cannot be the primary driver. For example, lab animals on fixed diets have been developing higher levels of obesity and diabetes in recent years. In Japan, diets are healthier, and obesity rates have not increased; however, diabetes rates have risen quickly and are now similar to those in the United States. The idea that diabetes results from toxic exposure in addition to overconsuming sugar and starch is further supported by findings—though not causative—that when diabetic individuals gain weight, it is actually the body’s way of protecting itself against the effects of diabetes:
“People with a higher body mass index have been shown to have an improved survival advantage in terms of chronic diabetes complications, especially cardiovascular complications… We propose that adipocytes are actually friends of the human body to prevent the occurrence of diabetes and also help in mitigating the complications of diabetes. Adipose tissue actually acts as a reservoir of free fatty acids, responsible for insulin resistance, and prevents their overflow into insulin-sensitive tissues and, therefore, friendly fat theory.”
It has also been observed that the rate of total synthetic organic chemical production by industry and the incidence of type 2 diabetes have followed the same trend since the 1950s (see figure 1 below). Choi et al. (2014) were among the first to recognize that benzene could be playing an important role in the rise of type 2 diabetes. They found a clear relationship between benzene exposure and insulin resistance in older adults:
“Urinary benzene at levels currently observed in the urban elderly population is associated with IR [Insulin Resistance], independent of traditional risk factors. Reduction of community-level exposure to benzene is therefore important for the effective prevention of IR in older adults.”
This result has since been confirmed by several other studies, with related VOCs, such as xylene, also being implicated. These studies have shown that children and adolescents, the general adult population, and pregnant women all experience high blood sugar, insulin resistance, and increased diabetes risk in proportion to their benzene and/or similar VOC exposure. Exposing pregnant animals to benzene results in metabolic disease in their offspring. It has also been found that Asian populations may be more sensitive to benzene-induced diabetes than white populations, which could explain the higher rates of diabetes in Asian communities despite lower obesity levels. Williams et al. (2018) write:
“Preconception benzene exposure was associated with 29% (95% confidence interval: 12, 47) increased odds of GDM [Gestational Diabetes Mellitus] among whites compared with 45% (95% confidence interval: 16, 81) increased odds among APIs [Asian Pacific Islanders]”
In controlled laboratory experiments, mice exposed to inhaled benzene developed insulin resistance and glucose intolerance:
“Compared with air controls, we found that mice inhaling benzene demonstrated increased plasma glucose (p = .05), insulin (p = .03), and HOMA-IR (p = .05), establishing a state of insulin and glucose intolerance.”
Furthermore, benzene’s impact on public health extends beyond those with diabetes, which currently affects about 14% of U.S. adults, due to its role in elevating blood sugar. An additional 48% of U.S. adults have prediabetes, and many others experience subclinical dysglycemia—blood sugar levels that fall within the “normal” lab range but are still too high for optimal health. If you fall into one of these latter categories, you may be undiagnosed—but elevated blood sugar levels could be negatively affecting your health. Diabetes is diagnosed based on fasting and post-meal blood sugar levels (measured in the U.S. in mg/dL, or milligrams of sugar per deciliter of blood), as well as a marker called hemoglobin A1c (abbreviated HbA1c or simply A1c)—the percentage of your red blood cells that carry sugar-coated hemoglobin. Prediabetes is diagnosed when your A1C is over 5.7% and when fasting blood sugar levels are >100 mg/dl. Yet increases in all cause mortality start occurring when the A1C rises above 5.4% and when fasting blood sugar rises above 94 mg/dl. The younger you are when you exceed these thresholds, the greater the impact on your health. Unfortunately, younger people have seen the largest relative rises in blood sugar. Globally, prediabetes affected just 1% of children and adolescents between 1993 and 2000. Between 2011 and 2018, that number had climbed to nearly 11%. The average A1C and fasting blood sugar levels in children had also risen during this time.
The Microbiome: A Key Player in Benzene Sensitivity and Health
Exactly how benzene raises blood sugar isn’t fully understood, but what is known is that benzene causes oxidative stress throughout the body and damages both white blood cells and DNA. It also disrupts the microbiome, prompting gut bacteria to produce harmful compounds—some of which break down the gut barrier, allowing toxins to enter the bloodstream. In fact, your microbiome plays a critical role in how your body responds to environmental pollutants. It can turn certain toxins into something far more harmful—or help neutralize them altogether. Claus et al. (2016) write:
“There is clear evidence that bacteria-dependent metabolism of pollutants modulates the toxicity for the host…..gut microbiota are a major, yet underestimated element that must be considered to fully evaluate the toxicity of environmental contaminants.”
Unfortunately, your microbiome can be altered by benzene—even if you didn’t absorb it directly. Much of your microbiome’s foundation is shaped during your earliest years, influenced by the bacteria you acquire from your parents, food, and the indoor and outdoor environments around you. When benzene falls from the air and settles on surfaces, it alters the makeup of microbial communities. If you were born into an environment with high benzene levels, you may have developed a microbiome that’s more sensitive to it—making it harder for your body to handle benzene throughout life, compared to someone exposed later on. Benzene-related changes in your mother’s microbiome or epigenetic shifts in her body before or during pregnancy could also have passed on a heightened sensitivity, potentially through alterations in your developing hypothalamus.
Further evidence of the benzene-diabetes link comes from government regulations: when benzene exposure declined, new diabetes cases began falling for the first time in years. Initial regulatory steps were taken between 2006 and 2011 in the U.S. In 2006, beverage companies began reducing benzene levels in their products—especially in diet drinks, which tend to contain more benzene than sugary ones due to chemical reactions between benzoate and ascorbic acid. Notably, diet soda drinkers have the highest diabetes risk. Then, in 2011, as part of the Mobile Source Air Toxics rule, benzene limits in gasoline were enforced. The prevalence of diabetes remains high because the number of new cases each year continues to exceed the number of deaths. While benzene exposure has decreased and fewer new cases are emerging, the rate of disease is still too high. Rates of type 2 diabetes in adolescents (over age 10) and teens continue to rise, even as rates for adults decline.
If you were born before the 1990s, your microbiome likely developed during a time when benzene exposure was significantly higher than it is now. While children today are born into a lower-benzene environment, their parents’ microbiomes and epigenetics were shaped by higher exposures—and those influences can be passed down. The long-term effects of this are still unknown. Additionally, other factors are impacting the microbiome health of younger generations, which could increase their sensitivity to benzene. Being born by C-section—an increasingly common practice since the 1970s—means you’re born with an altered microbiome, which increases your risk of developing diabetes. Significant antibiotic use also alters your microbiome composition and increases your risk of diabetes. Since 1992, many mothers have received intravenous antibiotics during delivery to combat Strep B, further influencing the microbiome of newborns. Viral infections, which are constantly evolving, can affect your microbiome. For example, Respiratory Syncytial Virus and COVID-19 can both alter your gut microbiome, and contribute to higher blood sugar levels.
Practical Ways to Reduce Benzene Exposure
Now that you’ve seen how various factors, including benzene, can influence your microbiome and blood sugar, it’s time to explore the measures you can take to protect and support your health. Reducing the impact of benzene involves minimizing contact, boosting detoxification, and strengthening your gut. You can start by making a few simple changes: swap petroleum-based candles for beeswax, improve ventilation while cooking, and steer clear of personal care products with butane propellants or ingredients containing ‘benz’ in their names.
Organic bar soaps and concentrated oil-based formulas often skip the preservatives. Castile soap is especially versatile—it can double as shampoo, dish soap, and more. Check labels for additives like sodium benzoate or potassium benzoate, and cut back on smoked, processed, or canned meats and fish. Avoid food packaged in Styrofoam—including takeout—and limit acidic items like olives or ketchup when they come in #5 plastic containers (check the recycling number on the bottom). For airborne benzene you can’t eliminate, try a DIY activated charcoal filter or buy one rated for VOCs—most only target particulates. A handheld air quality meter that measures VOCs can help you confirm your filter’s doing its job.
Since it’s nearly impossible to avoid all benzene exposure, supporting your body’s natural detoxification processes can be helpful. One powerful detoxifier is sulforaphane, found in broccoli—and in even higher concentrations in broccoli sprouts. In controlled studies, broccoli sprouts have been shown to lower fasting blood sugar and A1C. Unlike other cruciferous vegetables, they don’t appear to stress the thyroid gland. You can buy broccoli sprouts as a dried supplement, grow them at home, or purchase them fresh. Gentle heat unlocks sulforaphane in both sprouts and mature broccoli. For sprouts, blanch in water at 61°C (142°F) for about 5 minutes. For adult broccoli, aim for 57°C (135°F) for roughly 13 minutes. Do not cook the broccoli any further after blanching. If you’re using sprouts, be aware they can cause gas and bloating in some people. Ginger is another helpful detox support—it boosts glutathione peroxidase, an enzyme that helps your body neutralize toxins. Daily consumption of powdered ginger has also been shown to significantly lower blood sugar. Garlic, another detox-supporting food rich in sulfur compounds, can help reduce blood sugar. Turmeric is a well-known Ayurvedic remedy for diabetes and will also support detoxification. An effective dose can range from a half teaspoon twice daily to one teaspoon three times a day. Traditionally, turmeric is paired with bay leaf and lemon, but don’t skip the black pepper—it significantly boosts absorption. Be aware that turmeric can cause stomach upset, especially with long-term high doses. It’s also high in oxalates and may interfere with iron absorption.
You can also reduce benzene sensitivity by supporting your microbiome—through both dietary and non-dietary approaches. For example, proper light exposure—such as getting natural sunlight in the morning and minimizing blue light at night—can improve gut flora and lower the risk of developing diabetes. Drinking water enriched with hydrogen has been shown to affect the gut microbiome and help lower blood sugar. Physical exercise promotes the growth of beneficial gut bacteria, which can support metabolic health on its own. Probiotics and probiotic-rich foods—like yogurt and fermented vegetables—further enhance microbiome diversity. Prebiotic foods such as Jerusalem artichoke and okra support gut health and help lower blood sugar.
Ingredients including basil, chile, cumin, fenugreek, mustard, oregano, and sage have been shown to help lower blood sugar levels. Responses to blood sugar-lowering plants can vary—some may trigger fluctuations rather than support steady detoxification. Monitor your blood sugar, blood pressure, and overall health closely when trying anything new. Thyroid dysfunction—clinical or subclinical—can interfere with detoxification and blood sugar balance, especially if linked to past benzene exposure. In these cases, addressing thyroid health and adjusting iodine intake with professional guidance may lead to meaningful improvements.
As you work to reduce benzene toxicity, monitoring your blood sugar at home can help track your progress. If you don’t have a meter from your doctor, affordable and accurate options are available for personal use. Keep in mind that high benzene exposure—from sources such as gasoline vapors or toxic building materials—can trigger a blood sugar spike within hours, especially if you’re sensitive. But this isn’t always immediate; the body can store benzene in fat and bone marrow for up to three days. After a toxic exposure that includes benzene, your body may prioritize clearing other chemicals first. During this time, blood sugar can temporarily drop as your liver focuses on detoxification and digestion slows. Benzene may be stored instead of processed right away, leading to a delayed blood sugar spike once it’s released. Track your data over time to spot patterns, and be patient with the process.
In conclusion, your risk of developing diabetes isn’t just about sugar—it’s also influenced by chemical exposure. Foods like diet soda and processed meats, which carry a high risk, are also among the highest in benzene. This overlap suggests that benzene and other foodborne toxins may play a much larger role in diabetes development than previously recognized. Ultra-processed foods and refined carbohydrates also fail to support a healthy gut microbiome, adding another layer of risk. While both prediabetes and type 2 diabetes are influenced by diet and lifestyle, lifestyle changes are often more effective in preventing the progression from prediabetes to full-blown diabetes. Prediabetes affects a wider range of socioeconomic groups, whereas type 2 diabetes is more common in lower-income neighborhoods, where access to healthy food is limited, pollution is higher, and stress levels are greater. If you live near motor vehicles or in an urban environment, you’re likely exposed to daily doses of benzene and other toxins. Still, your body is remarkably resilient, equipped with systems to detoxify and restore balance. With the right support for your microbiome and detox pathways, you can make a meaningful difference. You might already have the perfect spice or herb in your cupboard or garden—one that aligns with your unique metabolism and microbiome. Grab a glucometer, try new recipes, and start experimenting.
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Published on May 08, 2025.
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