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Insulin a risk for pancreatic cancer

by Dr Norman Swan

A new study identifies insulin as a risk factor for pancreatic cancer.

28 08 2007


Pancreatic cancer is a nasty disease with a poor cure rate unless caught early. The pancreas sits behind the abdomen and helps digestion as well as producing insulin to control blood sugar.

Unfortunately pancreatic cancer is usually silent until it's too late so like all cancers it'd be much better to prevent. But the trouble is that no-one's too sure about the risk factors. There's some evidence for smoking, obesity, lack of exercise and type 2 diabetes and a recent study strongly supports the idea that insulin is a key player - at least in male smokers.

This was a follow up of 29,000 male smokers who were in a trial to see whether they'd benefit from antioxidants (which they didn't by the way).

Allowing for their other risk factors, those with the highest insulin levels and those with adult onset diabetes had double the risk of pancreatic cancer over 14 years.

The reason may be that insulin is a cancer promoter. In any event it's another reason to try to fight the diabetes epidemic.

For Reference

Title: Journal of the American Medical Association
Author: Stolzenberg-Solomon RZ et al. Insulin, glucose, insulin resistance and pancreatic cancer in male smokers.