Has Research Found A Link Between Diabetes And Cancer?
Will cancer now be added to the long list of complications associated with diabetes? Like there wasn’t enough already! Eating higher carbohydrate foods and more sugar lead to higher blood sugar, higher blood sugar leads to diabetes. Ugh, can I get a piece of cheesecake while I ponder the subject? It is a vicious cycle that must be stopped.
The Swedish research, which looked at 64,500 people, linked raised blood sugar with pancreas, skin, womb, and urinary tract cancers in women.
It tends to make sense when you think about the physiology of diabetes. In very elementary terms, the pancreas is what produces the insulin in your body. Insulin is a hormone that the body produces to turn starches, carbohydrates and sugars into energy for everyday use. Diabetics do not properly produce or effectively use insulin, but that is not to say the cause is a tumor or abnormal cell growth. Would it be safe to assume that a diabetics pancreas is more at risk for abnormal cell growth or cancer? What comes first, the chicken or the egg?
There is still scientific debate about whether diabetes causes pancreatic cancer or whether it is just a symptom of something going wrong with the pancreas ie cancer affecting the production of insulin.
Once again, I spent the better part of 2 hours researching abstracts and articles related to diabetes and the incidence of cancer. What did I find? A whole lot of mixed results.
Overall, the research found women in the top 25% range of blood sugar readings after fasting had a 26% higher chance of developing cancer than those in the bottom quarter.
When I searched some more…
Diabetes in patients with pancreatic cancer is frequently of recent onset and is presumably caused by the tumor. Diabetes is not a risk factor for pancreatic cancer.
The underlying common thread in almost every article was the need for more information to be conclusive.
Much more research needs to be done before we can conclude if there is a link between high blood glucose levels and cancer
The only solid advice I found during my search was diabetics need to control their blood sugar. Whether it be by diet, exercise, medications or even all of the above, lower glucose numbers means a decreased risk for many complications associated with diabetes. Will scientists ever know the relationship between cancer and diabetes? I guess only time will tell, but for now I will hold off on that big ol’ hunk of cheesecake.
2 opinions for Has Research Found A Link Between Diabetes And Cancer?
Cancer and B17
Mar 21, 2007 at 8:40 pm
[…] cheescake.jpgWill cancer now be added to the long list of complications associated with diabetes? Like there wasn t enough already! Eating higher carbohydrate foods and more sugar lead to higher blood sugar, higher blood sugar leads to … Read More… […]
Kendra James, RN
Mar 22, 2007 at 9:06 am
Thanks for the link and trackback. I hope that one day there will a definitive answer to this proposed question.
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