NEW YORK, August 2 (Praxis Press) Ethnic and lifestyle factors may play a role in the relationship of cigarette smoking and the development of type 2 diabetes. Nakanishi and colleagues studied the association of smoking and the development of impaired fasting blood-glucose and type 2 diabetes in 1,266 middle-aged Japanese men. The relative risks of developing impaired fasting glucose and type 2 diabetes increased with the number of cigarettes smoked per day. Compared with never-smokers, men who smoked 31 or more cigarettes per day had relative risks of 2.56 and 4.09 for impaired fasting glucose and type 2 diabetes, respectively. The number of pack-years was also associated with the development of impaired fasting glucose (P = 0.039) and type 2 diabetes (P = 0.002). A dose-dependent association exists between daily and cumulative smoking, and the development of impaired fasting glucose and type 2 diabetes in Japanese men.