Diabetes can herald pancreatic cancer

Christiane Fux studied journalism and psychology in Hamburg. The experienced medical editor has been writing magazine articles, news and factual texts on all conceivable health topics since 2001. In addition to her work for, Christiane Fux is also active in prose. Her first crime novel was published in 2012, and she also writes, designs and publishes her own crime plays.

More posts by Christiane Fux All content is checked by medical journalists.

Type 2 diabetes can be a harbinger of pancreatic cancer. In the first three years after diagnosis, the risk of developing the cancer, which is often fatal, is 2.3 times higher than usual. This type of cancer is usually recognized very late.

But does cancer cause diabetes - or is it the other way around and diabetes promotes the development of pancreatic cancer? Scientists suspect that both are the case.

Hidden tumor brings pancreas out of sync

In type 2 diabetes, the cells of the pancreas become exhausted because they had to produce too much of the sugar-lowering hormone insulin due to the increasing insulin resistance of the body's cells. It is therefore easy to imagine that this process is accelerated when a hidden tumor grows in the pancreas and throws it off balance.

This is also supported by the fact that half of the patients with recently diagnosed diabetes stabilized the sugar balance again as soon as the tumor was removed.

Equally plausible is the hypothesis that the biologically exhausted organ is more susceptible to such a tumor.

Tumor as a reason for rapid progress?

Previous studies had shown that another suspicion factor for pancreatic cancer could be the rapid progression of diabetes. Typically, type 2 diabetes develops slowly. You should also take a closer look if a long-standing diabetes worsens very suddenly, for example the sugar levels suddenly become so bad that you have to switch from blood-sugar-lowering tablets to insulin injections.

Overall, the risk of cancer is low

It is not necessary to panic as soon as diabetes is diagnosed. Of the nearly 16,000 participants in the study who developed diabetes between 1993 and 2013, only 128 also developed pancreatic cancer. The probability was therefore only 0.85 percent.

Only nine percent are still alive after five years

Nevertheless, diabetes is interesting as an early messenger of pancreatic cancer, since it usually only becomes noticeable when it is already well advanced and therefore incurable. Only nine percent of those affected live five years after diagnosis. This makes pancreatic cancer one of the deadliest forms of cancer.

According to the Robert Koch Institute, 8,550 men and 8,580 women fall ill with it every year in Germany.

Tags:  symptoms parasites pregnancy birth