Diabetes May Double Cancer Risk in Women
New diabetes research shows that the disease lowers the rate of prostate cancer in men‚ but it may double the risk of female genital and other cancers.
Researchers at the Sackler Faculty of Medicine at Tel Aviv University report their findings in the journal Cancer Causes & Control. The study involved 16‚721 patients with diabetes‚ differentiating between men and women and defining the relative cancer risks for each group. None of the subjects had a history of cancer at the study’s start in 2000, but over the course of eight years‚ there were 1‚639 cases of different cancers among people with diabetes. Researchers compared these cases to those of the same cancers in a healthy‚ diabetes–free population of nearly 84,000 people. The study found that diabetes can have a preventative effect on conditions like prostate cancer and reduces the risk of cancers associated with insulin–like hormones by up to 47 percent. In women‚ lead researcher Dr. Gabriel Chodick said‚ “The interaction of diabetes and female hormones appears to exaggerate the risk‚ and make certain organs like the uterus and ovaries more receptive to certain kinds of cancer.” The authors note there is no cause for panic‚ however‚ as the overall risks of colon and ovarian cancers are generally low for women‚ though physicians should consider this new research when assessing patients’ long–term health histories.
