Switch to organic lawn care, and filter your water to keep your blood sugar in check.

Besides making your lawn toxic, pesticide use could be expanding your waistline.

RODALE NEWS, EMMAUS, PA—Among the many dangers of pesticides already known are cancer, non-Hodgkin's lymphoma, and Parkinson's disease. Now you can add obesity and type 2 diabetes to the list. A new study published in the Journal of Medicinal Chemistry finds that a certain class of chemical pesticides used on lawns can influence your body's secretion of insulin, which could have a long-term impact on your waistline.

THE DETAILS: The researchers used human tissue cells to see how they were influenced by two classes of chemicals, phenoxy herbicides and fibrates. Phenoxy herbicides are a large class of chemical pesticides encompassing 2,4-D, the most widely used pesticide in the U.S. and the active ingredient in most "weed and feed" fertilizers and products like Ortho Weed-B-Gone; fibrates are cholesterol-lowering drugs. They found that both phenoxy herbicides and fibrates block the body's receptors of a particular hormone, T1R3, found on your tongue and in your pancreas, that regulates your body's ability to sense sweet tastes. It also influences your body's ability to produce insulin.

The reaction is similar to what might happen if you go on a high-carbohydrate diet, says study coauthor Bedrich Mosinger, MD, PhD, a geneticist and researcher at the Monell Chemical Senses Center in Philadelphia. "High-carb diets stimulate your pancreatic cells, and insulin releases more quickly," he says. That, in turn, lowers your blood sugar and makes you crave, and eat, more food. "Chronically, when you do that, it depletes the body's ability to produce insulin. Eventually, people cannot make enough insulin to sustain blood glucose levels, and that results in type 2 diabetes."