Monday, February 10, 2025
HomeHealth ConditionsCancerIs Diabetes Associated with Higher Cancer Incidence?

Is Diabetes Associated with Higher Cancer Incidence?

Diabetes is a common metabolic disorder. Researchers recently examined if diabetes is also associated with higher cancer incidence.

Diabetes is a metabolic disorder that is estimated to affect 7% of Canadians (approximately 2.1 million) according to Statistics Canada. Diabetics suffer from uncontrolled blood glucose levels due to complications releasing insulin, a blood glucose regulating hormone. Diabetes can be caused by an autoimmune disorder (type 1 diabetes), or more commonly through poor diet, exercise, and weight control (type 2 diabetes). Although previous research points towards diabetics having an increased risk of cancer, few studies have measured it in a cohort study.

In a recent study published in BMC Cancer, researchers conducted a cohort study on a population within northern Italy to determine the cancer incidence in diabetics. A total of 407,157 participants between the ages 20-84 years were registered for the study.  Of these, 23,358 were diabetic. The researchers monitored patients for cancer diagnosis and diabetes treatments, including diet management, oral hypoglycemic agents (OHA), and insulin injections.

The study showed that diabetics were 1.22 times more likely to develop cancer than non-diabetics, with women at higher risk than men. Diabetics were found to be at higher risk of developing liver, bladder, pancreas, colorectal, and uterus cancers. Due to the prevalence of type 2 diabetes, the majority (96%) of diabetics within the study were type 2. When the study analysed type 2 diabetics alone, they found that individuals managing their diabetes through diet had the lowest cancer incidence, followed by OHAs, insulin injections, and insulin with OHAs at the highest.

Diabetes is a metabolic disorder that is also associated with higher cancer incidence. The researchers in this study found diabetics were at a higher risk of developing liver, bladder, pancreas, colorectal, and uterus cancers than non-diabetics. Though the researchers did not test if insulin injections had a causal relationship with cancer, previous research on diabetes and cancer suggests insulin injections play a direct role in cancer development.

Written by Aaron Kwong, MSc.

References

Millar, W. J. & Young, T. K. Tracking diabetes: prevalence, incidence and risk factors. Heal. reports 14, 35–47 (2003).

Ballotari, P. et al. Diabetes and risk of cancer incidence: results from a population-based cohort study in northern Italy. BMC Cancer 17, 1–8 (2017).

RELATED ARTICLES

LEAVE A REPLY

Please enter your comment!
Please enter your name here

Latest News and Articles

SUBSCRIBE TO OUR NEWSLETTERS

Stay Connected
10,288FansLike
820FollowersFollow
249FollowersFollow
2,787FollowersFollow

Article of the month

Weight loss drug Tirzepatide helps beat heart failure

New drug, tirzepatide, shows promise for patients with diastolic/preserved ejection fraction heart failure. Find out more with MNB.

Joke Of The Day – February 10

Doctor to the patient: - For the most effective treatment, I need to ask you to take this medicine exactly 15 minutes before the beginning...

ADVERTISE WITH US

error: Content is read-only and copy-protected.