Scientists at Cedars-Sinai have found things that make it more likely for people with chronic pancreatitis to get diabetes.
Chronic pancreatitis is a long-lasting inflammation of the pancreas. This study has been published in a journal called Diabetes Care.
Some things that increase the risk of getting diabetes for these people are smoking and being overweight.
Dr. Mark Goodarzi, the senior author of the study, said that they hope to use this information to make a model that doctors can use to figure out which patients with chronic pancreatitis might get diabetes.
That way, doctors can watch those patients more closely and try to prevent diabetes.
What is Chronic Pancreatitis?
Chronic pancreatitis is not very common. Only about 5 to 12 out of 100,000 people in developed countries like the U.S. get this disease, according to the National Pancreas Foundation.
But if the pancreas stays inflamed for a long time, it can get damaged and can’t help the body digest food properly. Many studies show that most people with chronic pancreatitis will eventually get diabetes.
What the Study Found
The scientists studied 645 people with chronic pancreatitis for this study. They found that:
- Men were more than twice as likely as women to get diabetes.
- People who were overweight or obese were almost three times more likely than people of normal weight to get diabetes.
- Non-white people were more than twice as likely as white people to get diabetes.
- Smokers were more than twice as likely as non-smokers to get diabetes.
- Older people were more likely to get diabetes, with the chances going up by 3% for each year of a person’s life.
- Some features of the pancreas disease also increased the risk of getting diabetes.
Changing Behaviors to Lower Risk
Some of these risk factors, like smoking and being overweight, are things that people can change. Dr. Goodarzi said that these models might help doctors encourage their patients to quit smoking or lose weight.
The scientists are now following a larger group of patients to see if these risk factors also predict who gets diabetes in that group.
They also want to study how genes and levels of insulin and other hormones might make people with chronic pancreatitis more likely to get diabetes.
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The study was published in Diabetes Care.
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