Research finds increased cancer risk in diabetic adults aged 40-54 years

Diabetes significantly increases the risk of cancer, particularly in people aged 40-54 years, new research shows. The analysis of data from more than three million patients warns that the risk of cancer starts to rise shortly before the formal diagnosis of diabetes and peaks in the year after.

The risk of pancreatic cancer is the highest, increasing more than twofold (129.4%) in people with diabetes than in the population without the disease, according to new research by Semmelweis University. They also found that the risk of developing liver cancer is 83% higher in people with diabetes.

The researchers analyzed data from 3,681,774 individuals in the Hungarian National Health Insurance Fund database between 2010 and 2021, of whom 86,537 had diabetes. The age group analyzed was between 40 and 89 years old.

During the ten-year follow-up period, 8.6% of people in the control group and 10.1% of people with diabetes were diagnosed with cancer.

In addition to pancreatic and liver cancer, the researchers also looked at the risk of four other types of tumors.

"We found that people with diabetes (Type 1 and Type 2) had a higher risk of developing all six cancer types we looked into," said Dr Heléna Safadi, assistant lecturer at the Health Service Management Training Centre of Semmelweis University and lead author of the study published in the journal Diabetes Research and Clinical Practice.

Patients with diabetes had a 44.2% higher risk of kidney cancer and a 30% higher risk of colorectal cancer compared to the population without the disease. The risk of developing prostate cancer was 17.1% higher in people with diabetes, while the risk of breast cancer was 13.7% higher.

The difference in cancer incidence between people with diabetes and controls was most significant in the younger age group: 5.4% of those with the disease aged 40-54 were diagnosed with cancer during the ten years, compared with 4.4% of controls. In contrast, in the 70-89 age group, the difference between diabetics and controls was only 0.3 percentage points (12.7% vs. 12.4%).

The researchers also observed that the time between the diagnosis of diabetes and the development of tumors was very short and that the diseases often occurred simultaneously.