A new study has revealed that people who develop type 2 diabetes are at an increased risk of some of the most lethal cancers, including liver and pancreatic tumours. According to the researchers, the risk is even higher among women.
The researchers analysed health records of 95,000 people and found that hat the risk of pancreatic cancer was nearly twice as high, and the chance of developing liver cancer almost five times as high, in women recently diagnosed with type 2 diabetes, The Guardian reported.
According to the study, in men, the new-onset type 2 diabetes linked to a 74% increase in pancreatic cancer and a near quadrupling in the risk of liver cancer in the five years afterwards.
“Diabetes and obesity are associated with similar cancer types,” said Owen Tipping, a medical student who worked on the study with Andrew Renehan, professor of cancer studies and surgery at the University of Manchester as quoted by The Guardian. “Our research was detecting the effect of diabetes on cancer, after adjusting for obesity.”
Earlier studies have linked obesity with 13 types of cancer, many of which are also more common in people with type 2 diabetes. The researchers of the current study noticed a surge in cancer diagnoses shortly after people are found to have diabetes, simply because patients have more medical tests. The researchers accounted for this spike in cancer due to better detection by ignoring cases reported within a year of a diabetes diagnosis.
The study will be presented at the European Congress on Obesity in Málaga, Spain, in May.
It is unclear how diabetes might drive cancer, but scientists suspect high levels of insulin, high blood glucose and chronic inflammation, The Guardian reported.
Sophia Lowes at Cancer Research UK said as quoted by The Guardian: “This study helps increase our understanding of the link between diabetes and cancer. While many questions remain about how and why diabetes might cause cancer, research like this is vital in helping us better prevent, detect and diagnose the disease.
“Overweight and obesity cause at least 13 different types of cancer. The world around us doesn’t always make it easy, but keeping a healthy weight and eating a healthy, balanced diet is one way to reduce the risk of cancer. There are other steps people can take too, such as not smoking and cutting down on alcohol.”