Scientists from Steno Diabetes Center Copenhagen found that cancer patients are at a greater risk of developing diabetes.
They also found that cancer patients who develop diabetes die sooner than survivors without diabetes.
The research is published in Diabetes Care and was conducted by Associate Professor Lykke Sylow et al.
In the study, the team examined an extensive data set consisting of 112 million blood samples from 1.3 million Danes, of whom more than 50,000 developed cancer.
They discovered that a cancer diagnosis was associated with an elevated risk of developing diabetes.
The team found certain types of cancer were more likely than others to increase this risk.
There is an elevated risk of developing diabetes if a person is affected by lung, pancreatic, breast, brain, urinary tract or uterine cancers.
While the study does not say anything definitive about why certain types of cancer are associated with a greater risk of developing diabetes, the researchers have theories around which new studies can be built.
The study also found that people diagnosed with cancer and subsequently diabetes do not generally live as long as patients who do not develop diabetes while experiencing cancer.
Across all cancer cases observed, cancer patients without diabetes survived longer compared to cancer patients diagnosed with diabetes.
Overall, the study finds excess mortality of 21% in patients who develop diabetes after being diagnosed with cancer.
It is worth noting that the study encompassed all types of cancer and did not investigate the influence of diabetes on survivability in relation to individual cancer types.
The team says currently, the screening of cancer patients for diabetes has yet to be incorporated into the healthcare system.
If it could be shown that screening cancer patients for diabetes would lead to a higher quality of life and increased survival, this would be a good idea in the future.
If you care about cancer, please read studies about vegetable oil linked to spread of cancer, and grape seed extract may help increase lifespan, reduce cancer.
For more information about diabetes, please see recent studies about how to cure type 2 diabetes successfully, and results showing blood pressure rising at night may double death risk in people with diabetes.
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