Women who develop diabetes could also double their risk of cancer, a study has found.
Type 2 diabetes causes insulin-like hormones to circulate through the body. Researchers found that these appeared to interact with female hormones increasing the risk of cancer in women.
The study led by Dr Gabriel Chodick and Dr Varda Shalev of Tel Aviv University was the largest of its kind.
They followed more than 16,000 diabetics from 2000 to 2008. At the start of the study none of the participants had a history of cancer.
Over the following eight years, the researchers documented 1,639 cases of different cancers among people with diabetes, and compared them to occurrences of the same cancers in the healthy non-diabetic population - a sample of 83,874 people.
The team found diabetic women had a substantially higher risk of developing ovarian and colon cancer.
Dr Chodick wrote in the journal Cancer Causes & Control: '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.'
He urged doctors to take the research into account when assessing the long-term health histories of their patients. He also encouraged diabetic women to be screened for colon cancer earlier and more often than those in the general population.
However type 2 diabetes was found to have a surprisingly positive effect on men by reducing the rate of prostate cancer by 47 per cent.
'For men, this study is good news,' Dr Chodick said.
Type 2 diabetes is a lifelong condition in which the body is unable to regulate the amount of glucose in the blood properly. It develops when the body doesn't respond to the natural hormone insulin, usually as a result of the person being overweight.
It can cause tiredness and thirstiness in the short-term but increase the risk of stroke, kidney damage and eye damage longer term.
A total of 2.5 million people are diagnosed with diabetes in the UK and around 500,000 more have the condition but do not know it.
Dr Chodick said the best approach was to try to avoid developing diabetes with a high-fibre, low-carbohydrate diet combined with exercise.
Src & Text: [DailyMail]
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