Diabetes increases Colorectal Cancer risk

Are you a Diabetic? Be careful. A new study has shown that the women who have this metabolic disorder of pancreatic malfunctioning have a higher risk of getting infected with colorectal cancer.

American Association for Cancer Research conducted its Sixth Annual International Conference on Frontiers in Cancer Prevention Research. A study was released mentioning that women suffering from diabetes have 1.5 times higher risk of developing cancerous tumors in the tissues of the colon or rectum.

The lead author of the study Dr. Andrew Flood, who is also an assistant professor of epidemiology and community health at the University of Minnesota School of Public Health said they conducted a background check of the records of around 45,000 females who took part in a 1970’s project known as the Breast Cancer Demonstration Project. It was checked how many of them later developed a cancer.

Dr. Flood said that all the observations lead us to believe that insulin plays a key role in the development of cancer. They are still at the primary stage of understanding the mechanism by which insulin increases the risk.

"Our primary finding in this study was that a diagnosis of diabetes meant a 50 percent stronger chance of developing Colorectal cancer," he added.

Colorectal cancer is the third most prevalent cancer outside skin cancers. The estimates say that there will be around 112,340 new cases of colon cancer and 41,420 new cases of rectal in 2007 causing around 52,000 deaths. The death rate due to this cancer has been on a decrease lately. This is because better screening procedures help in removing the polyps before they turn into cancer.

The analysis of data for the women who were in the pre-diabetic stage was also done. People who are in this stage have higher levels of insulin than normal. It was expected that these people will have a higher risk of cancer but the results found were the opposite of this.

Though the exact mechanism is not yet known, the researchers believe that it may have something to do with the length of time and the degree of elevated insulin in the body. A further study to find statistics for diabetic men and development of Colorectal cancer in them also needs to be done. This will give appropriate results as to how the elevated amounts of insulin lead to cancer development.

The best way women with diabetes can help their bodies not to develop Colorectal cancer is through "management of glucose," according to Flood. "That's what they can do."

"I think the study is interesting as it provides additional evidence of the many factors that encourage development and growth of colon polyps and tumors," said David Beck, who is chairman of the department of colon and rectal surgery at the Ochsner Clinic Foundation in New Orleans. "It will stimulate additional research in this important area."