Diabetes and pancreatic cancer has been found to be linked in a study conducted by Mayo Clinic. The study found that 40% of patients with pancreatic cancer were previously diagnosed with diabetes many months before or for up to two years in some cases.
Lead author of the study Suresh Chari, M.D., who is also the gastroenterologist at the Mayo Clinic, said that they are now certain that for the patients who have pancreatic cancer the diabetes is caused by cancer and not vice versa.
Their next goal now is to find a biomarker for the diabetes brought about by pancreatic cancer so that they can check the newly diagnosed diabetic if they have early pancreatic cancer. This way they can present surgical treatment as early as possible.
Pancreatic cancer is the fourth leading cause of death in the United States and since they usually do not show symptoms for this early on, by the time it is diagnosed, the stage is so advanced, surgery is not possible. That is why less than 5% live five years after the diagnosis is made.
The researchers reviewed the records of 736 patients with pancreatic cancer and 1875 healthy people with the record of fasting blood sugar data. They found that 40% of the patients with pancreatic cancer were diagnosed with diabetes while in the healthy people group, only 20% had diabetes.
Diabetes that is induced by pancreatic cancer is less common than type 2 diabetes. Their previous study showed that only one of every 125 who were 50 years old and over and who were newly diagnosed with diabetes will be diagnosed with pancreatic cancer.
Dr. Wang and company said that around 80% of patients who have pancreatic cancer are intolerant to glucose or what they call frank diabetes in another research. From this finding, they came up with two hypotheses. One is that the pancreatic cancer leads to associated diabetes and second is that diabetes promotes the development of pancreatic cancer. There has been proof supporting these two hypotheses.
They will continue their work on this so that they can catch pancreatic cancer early enough to make it possible to do a surgical intervention more successfully. As for me, I am only too glad to know that this study shows that this condition is not a diabetes complication. Enough already! I don't want to write anymore about the link between diabetes and pancreatic cancer.
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