Visceral fat cells in the abdomen, the fat that surrounds the organs in the gut, secrete molecules that increase inflammation and increase the risk of developing diabetes and heart disease, this according to researchers at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis:

Reporting in the journal Diabetes, the research team says visceral fat likely contributes to increases in systemic inflammation and insulin resistance. They sampled blood from the portal vein in obese patients undergoing gastric bypass surgery and found that visceral fat in the abdomen was secreting high levels of an important inflammatory molecule called interleukin-6 (IL-6) into portal vein blood.
(…) Increased IL-6 levels in the portal vein correlated with concentrations of an inflammatory substance called C-reactive protein (CRP) in the body. High CRP levels are related to inflammation, and chronic inflammation is associated with insulin resistance, hypertension, type 2 diabetes and atherosclerosis, among other things.

Note that visceral fat surrounds internal organs and, unlike belly fat, cannot be surgically removed.
Diet and exercise my friends, diet and exercise …
Related reading – The secret life of fat cells:

The best way to get rid of visceral fat and shrink fat cells all at once is diet and exercise. Just a loss of 7 per cent of total body weight helps. … Something about burning more calories than you eat creates a state of negative energy balance that quickly melts away visceral fat and slims down bloated fat cells.

Nearly 21 million children and adults in the United States have diabetes and one-third of them are unaware they have the disease. Another 54 million Americans have pre-diabetes, a condition that puts them at serious risk for developing type 2 diabetes. Among the primary risk factors for type 2 diabetes are being overweight, sedentary, over the age of 45 and having a family history of diabetes.
African Americans, Latinos, Native Americans, Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders are at an increased risk, as are women who have had babies weighing more than nine pounds at birth. Unfortunately, people with type 2 diabetes can live for years without realizing that they have the disease. While people with diabetes can exhibit noticeable symptoms, such as frequent urination, blurred vision and excessive thirst, most people diagnosed with type 2 diabetes do not show these overt warning signs at the time that they develop the disease.
Often, type 2 diabetes only becomes evident when people develop one or more of its serious complications, such as heart disease, stroke, kidney disease, eye damage, and nerve damage that can lead to amputations.
Diabetes is the fifth leading cause of death by disease and has no cure.
The American Diabetes Association’s American Diabetes Alert(R) is a one-day, “wake-up” call to inform the public about the seriousness of diabetes, particularly when diabetes is left undiagnosed or untreated. American Diabetes Alert(R) Day encourages those at risk for developing type 2 diabetes to take the American Diabetes Risk Test and, if they score high, to schedule an appointment to see their doctor.
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1. WATCHING TWO OR MORE HOURS OF TV DAILY
Raises your risk: 14 percent
How: More TV equals less activity.
The fix: Limit TV time to 10 hours a week and exercise.
2. DRINKING ONE SODA A DAY
Raises your risk: 83 percent
How: Soda adds extra and empty calories, which can easily lead to weight gain.
The fix: Switch to water, diet soda, or even better, unsweetened tea, which may actually protect against disease.
3. SKIPPING BREAKFAST
Raises your risk: up to 50 percent
How: Not having that morning meal increases the appetite-stimulating hormone ghrelin, making you hungrier and likely to eat more.
The fix: Eat high-fiber cereal with low-fat milk and one-half cup of fruit in the morning. One study of people with prediabetes found that eating high- fiber cereals made their cells respond better to insulin. Consuming dairy products may also cut the risk for insulin resistance by 72 percent.
4. A BOUT OF MAJOR DEPRESSION
Raises your risk: 23 percent
How: Depression may alter body chemistry in a way that makes us more prone to developing diabetes.
The fix: Take a walk. Just 30 minutes, three times a week, has been shown to improve symptoms of depression.
5. A LARGE WAIST — EVEN IF YOU’RE AT A NORMAL WEIGHT
Raises your risk: 330 percent
How: Fat in the abdomen (visceral fat) produces compounds that make cells insulin-resistant. Women should keep their waist size below 35 inches (40 inches for men).
The fix: A half-hour to one hour of cardio, three to five times a week.
6. WAKING UP IN THE MIDDLE OF THE NIGHT
Raises your risk: 98 percent
How: Not being able to stay asleep means you’re not getting enough sleep, making you more prone to developing insulin resistance and leading to diabetes.
The fix: No caffeine in the late afternoon and evening, and no TV and alcohol right before bed. Try yoga, too.
7. EATING FAST FOOD MORE THAN TWICE A WEEK
Raises your risk: 100 percent
How: People who ate burgers, fries and soda more than twice a week put on 10 extra pounds and were twice as likely to become resistant to insulin.
The fix: Satisfy cravings with smaller portions.
8. HIGH STRESS
Raises your risk: 184 percent
How: Stress can interfere with your ability to make insulin and process glucose.
The fix: Allow 10-15 minutes a day to relax.
9. CONSUMING LOTS OF PROCESSED MEAT
Raises your risk: 43 percent
How: These meats (such as hot dogs and bacon) are loaded with preservatives that may destroy insulin- producing cells in your pancreas.
The fix: Cut back. A Harvard study found that women who had these meats less often than once a week had the lowest risk. Try a preservative-free type, too.
Source: Sacbee.com

…. and, as a result, may be almost twice as likely than others to develop Type 2 diabetes. According to a study published in the Psychosomatic Medicine journal:

… a team of researchers at Tel Aviv University found that those who experienced job burn-out are 1.84 times more likely than others to develop the condition – even when factors like age, sex and obesity are taken into account,
The study of 677 mostly male, middle-aged workers also found that when the possible effect of blood pressure levels was eliminated, the risk was more than four-fold higher.
According to the researchers, their findings show that stress can be added to other factors such as high blood pressure, fat deposits around the waist and lack of exercise, which are all known to increase risk of developing type 2 diabetes, the most common form of the condition.

Yes, we knew this. But how did the researchers separate their variables? Was it the long-hours and systematically unhealthy lifestyle or the very presence of stress — or both?

There appears to be a correlation:

A preliminary study has found Americans who live near toxic waste sites are hospitalized more for diabetes than those who live in clean communities.
The observational study, which tracked hospitalization rates for patients in New York between 1993 and 2000, found an increase in diabetes-related hospital admissions for people who live in ZIP codes containing toxic waste sites.
Although just an initial effort, the study does narrow the search for an answer to the U.S. diabetes boom, said study author Lawrence Lessner, an associate professor of epidemiology and biostatistics at the University at Albany in New York.
The study appeared in the January issue of Environmental Health Perspectives.
The researchers compared hospitalization rates by ZIP code for three types of communities: clean, without hazardous sites; contaminated by persistent organic pollutants, or POPs; and containing other types of waste or pollutants.
The authors examined whites and blacks between the ages of 25 to 74, correcting for potential factors that could skew the data, such as age, race, sex and average household income.
A major type of POPs are polychlorinated biphenyls, or PCBs, a former industrial ingredient of pesticides, paints, paper and other products. Although banned from U.S. industry in the 1970s, PCBs still exist in the environment. People are mainly exposed through eating animal fats, although they can also breathe in the pollutants.
Possible mechanisms for the association with diabetes are unknown, although some speculate that PCBs may influence the retention of fat in the body; more body fat is a risk factor for diabetes.

According to the scientists the concept that diabetes could be triggered by environmental factors is relatively new and needs to be explored as obesity does not fully account for the massive increases in type 2 diabetes.

This short letter on the genetic predisposition to Type I and II Diabetes is somewhat provoking:

Type 1 diabetes is the somewhat-newer name for what used to be called insulin-dependent or childhood diabetes. The pancreas of people with type 1 diabetes makes little to no insulin, so insulin has to be furnished by injection or in other forms. Most of the time, the onset of this kind of diabetes occurs before age 20.
Genes have a hand in both type 1 and type 2 diabetes, but more so in type 2 than in type 1. (Type 2 diabetes is the more prevalent kind, the kind that usually appears later in life and the kind that can often be controlled through diet and oral medicine.) If one identical twin develops type 1 diabetes, the other twin has a 30 percent to 50 percent chance of also coming down with it. Identical twins have identical genes. If genes were the only factor involved as a type 1 diabetes cause, both identical twins should get it. Something else, in addition to genes, has to be at work.

The comments are actually in response to a letter written by a 20-year-old who was recently diagnosed with Type I. A common misperception is that the disease is inherited. The fact that there are other significant risk factors, other than those predetermined, provides hope for an effective treatment (IMHO).

Those who work more hours tend to have a higher risk of developing diabetes:

A University of California study of nurses finds that working long hours increases the risk of diabetes in young and middle-aged women.
The researchers, who used data from the Nurses Health Study and tracked nurses aged 29 to 46, found that those who worked 60 hours a week or more were more than twice as likely to develop Type 2 diabetes, the British newspaper, The Mirror, reported. Those who worked 40 to 60 hours were 50 percent as likely to get diabetes as those who worked 21 to 39 hours.
“Results were consistent with an impact of job stress on diabetes outcome and hours worked per week may reflect the extent of exposure to stress,” said Candyce Kroenke, who led the research team.
Single women tended to drink and smoke more than married nurses and were also more likely to develop diabetes.
Researchers believe that stress raises cortical levels, leading to higher body fat and blood pressure.

There are a lot of interrelated factors that would be interesting to study. Not only stress but also less sleep and poorer eating habits.