Diabetes, breast cancer and metabolism, the Current Position

Diabetes, breast cancer and metabolism

As the level of obesity has risen exponentially in the Western World so has the incidence of insulin resistance and type two diabetes. There appears to be a link between obesity and post menopausal women and breast cancer, but that link is hard to prove as the risk factors for both are similar, a sedentary lifestyle, a high intake of refined carbohydrates such as white sugar, white bread and white pasta and a high level of fats and obesity.

The metabolic link between diabetes and obesity is there but the role of breast cancer and metabolism has only recently studies in September 2007. Statistically, the increase in breast cancer has been steady since the 1930s until the present day, except data from the National Cancer Institute’s Surveillance Epidemiology and End Results (SEER), the incidence of breast cancer dropped from 2001 to 2003 by 4.8% annually. It was presumed that this fall was a result of an increased awareness of the need for women to have mammograms and also a corresponding reduction in the amount of women undergoing HRT. In 1980, 5.8 million Americans were diabetic ( middle aged diabetics) while that figure has soared to nearly fifteen million by 2005.

Since the 1950s, women with breast cancer have had higher rates of diabetes than do healthy women in the same age group. Seven studies have found a strong association between breast cancer and diabetes in women after the menopause yet there has been no strong evidence that there is a link in pre menopausal women. This link is strong enough to suggest that diabetes can lead to breast cancer. In the study by Weiderpass et al in 1997 diabetes was assessed at baseline, and the subsequent relative risk for breast cancer diagnosed after five to nine years, but it found that the risk was no higher than in the one to four year periods. Michels et al 2003 found an increase in the incidence of cancer after fifteen years in diabetic patients. However the study was only small because of the gap of fifteen years. Some doctors believe that insulin concentration drop in the later stages of type 2 diabetes ad this may cause the increased risk to shrink over time and not get worse. A statistically significant positive association between diabetes mellitus and the risk of breast cancer remained in only three case studies over twenty years. Although the overall mortality rate for breast cancer has decreased in the past 15 years because of earlier diagnosis and better drugs, diabetes has been linked to increased mortality from breast cancer. Coughlin et al followed 1.2 million US men and women twice a year from 1982 to 1988 and found that women with diabetes were more likely to die from breast cancer than were women not diagnosed with diabetes. Similar studies in Italy have supported the claim that there is a direct causal relationship between diabetes and cancer and that diabetes also accelerated the growth of tumors and made it less likely that women would get to a five year survival rate.