Global Warming and Type 2 Diabetes: Sex and Gender as Drivers in a Multidimensional Feedback Loop

Climate change is increasingly recognized as a determinant of metabolic health. Emerging evidence indicates that rising temperatures impair glucose homeostasis-specifically through reduced brown adipose tissue activity and increased insulin resistance-thereby exacerbating type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM) risk. Concurrently, food systems drive substantial greenhouse gas emissions (GHGE), with gender-differentiated dietary patterns uniquely influencing both environmental impact and health outcomes. In this perspective, we move beyond well-established separate links to propose an original integrated and systemic conceptual framework. This framework connects gender-related drivers in dietary behaviors, GHGE, global warming, brown adipose tissue dysfunction, and T2DM risk into an integrated multidimensional feedback model, providing a novel basis to generate hypotheses for future mechanistic, epidemiological, and intervention studies, supporting gender-sensitive prevention strategies.