Scientists are becoming more and more aware of a link between cancer and diabetes, and a new study, published in Diabetologia, is the largest yet to observe this link. The study found that, as a breast cancer survivor, undergoing chemotherapy makes it more likely for your wellbeing to be affected by diabetes.
However, this association isn’t a one-way wellness street. Females with diabetes, for example, have a 20% chance of developing postmenopausal breast cancer. However, as an increasing number of women are now surviving breast cancer, it is more important than ever that we get a grip on the long-term outcomes for survivors as they grow older, and few studies have so far tried to determine what the risk of developing diabetes is for a breast cancer survivor.
Therefore, the team of researchers compared the prevalence of diabetes among females older than 55 with breast cancer (1996 to 2008) to women of the same age without the disease. Led by Dr Lorraine Lipscombe of the Women’s College Hospital, Women’s College Research Institute, Toronto, Canada, the investigators gathered and analyzed data from 24,976 breast cancer survivors and 124,880 controls in Ontario, and they also determined whether or not the patient had undergone chemotherapy.
The results of the study were that 9.7% of all the participants developed diabetes over an average follow-up of 5.8 years. Compared to the women without cancer, the risk of diabetes among breast cancer survivors started to grow at two years after diagnosis, and after 10 years, the 7% increased risk rose to 21%. For the 4,404 patients who received adjuvant chemotherapy, their diabetes risk went in the opposite correlation, being at its highest in the first two years after diagnosis (24% increased risk compared with the control group), and then after 10 years, it reduced to 8%.
Dr Lipscombe explained, ‘It is possible that chemotherapy treatment may bring out diabetes earlier in susceptible women. Increased weight gain has been noted in the setting for adjuvant chemotherapy for breast cancer, which may be a factor in the increased risk of diabetes in women receiving treatment. Oestrogen suppression as a result of chemotherapy may also promote diabetes; however this may have been less of a factor in this study where most women were already post-menopausal.’ She concluded that the results emphasise the importance of closer monitoring of diabetes among the survivors of breast cancer.
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