Diabetes makes the bloodstream carry an excess of glucose, which can end up causing damage to the body, this fact has long known, however, what has recently been discovered is that this excess blood glucoseCause damage to the DNA of the cells, thus increasing the risk of mutations and, therefore, of the development of a tumor.
But is this really so?That is, does diabetes increase the risk of cancer?
Because according to a study led by researchers from the George Institute of Global Health in Sydney (Australia), yes, being also this greater risk in women than in men.
As Toshiaki Ohkuma, director of this research published in the "Diabetology", "The association between diabetes and the risk of developing cancer is now firmly established.
In addition, we have also demonstrated for the first time that women with diabetes are more
Gender differences
To carry out their review or meta -analysis, the authors analyzed the results achieved in 47 clinical trials in which medical records of more than 19.2 million people were examined to try to find a possible relationship between diabetes and cancer -The total number of cases of cancer in these trials exceeded the million.
And the first thing they found is that diabetes is in itself an independent risk factor for the development of most oncological diseases.So much so, compared to women with normal blood glucose levels, patients with diabetes have a probability up to 27% higher cancer.An increase in risk that in the case of men is established in 19%.
Consequently, and according to the authors, "we can estimate that, in general, women with diabetes have a 6% higher probability of developing any type of cancer than men with this metabolic disease."
Women with diabetes have a 6% higher risk of developing any type of cancer than diabetic men
However, this gender difference was not the same for each of the types of cancer, varying significantly depending on the location of the tumor.In fact, and compared to men equally affected by diabetes, diabetic patients have a 15% higher risk of suffering from leukemia, 14% higher appearance of a stomach tumor, 13% greater of developing oral cancer and11% higher of renal cancer.On the contrary, diabetic men have a 12% more likely to suffer from liver cancer than women with the disease.
But, once the diabetes appeared, why the risk of cancer - in general - is greater in women?Well, the truth is that it is not known, although the authors have suggested several hypotheses about it.As Sanne Peters, co-author of the investigation indicates, "there could be several reasons about it, such as, on average, women are in the pre-diabetic state of glucose intolerance for two years more than men".
However, it is possible that the reason is not explained by ‘mere’ biological or metabolic differences between both sexes, but the attention they receive and others by their doctors.As Sanne Peters refers, «we already know that in a traditional way women are usually infromoted when they present the first symptoms of diabetes, which have a less likely to receive intensive care and that do not take the same level drugs as men.All these situations could somehow explain whyWomen have a greater risk of developing cancer.But without further investigations we cannot assure it with certainty ».
As Toshiaki Ohkuma concludes, «although the number of patients with diabetes has doubled globally in the last 30 years, we still have much to learn about this disease.It is vital that more studies are carried out to discover why diabetes increases the risk of cancer, as well as that both diabetic and doctors are aware of this increase in cancer probability ».
