High Blood Sugar Increases Cancer Risk

An new European study, funded by the World Cancer Research Fund, has just revealed that high blood sugar levels can increase the risk of cancer in women.

There are two causes of high blood sugar one is diabetes and the other is caused by a bad diet that includes lots of junk food and other sugary foods.

A team of Swedish researchers at the University of Umea carried out this new study. The researchers carried out observations of 64,500 men and women and found a distinct connection between high blood sugar levels and a number of cancers in women including, cancers of the urinary tract, womb, pancreas and skin.

The Swedish research has been released just after another study that has found that the risk of breast cancer is increased by a diet high in fat. Though the new Swedish study shows a link between high blood sugar and cancers, diabetes experts want more proof of the link before confirming the risk for certain. The Swedish study was able to link high blood sugar with a higher risk of breast cancer in women under the age of 49.

The study of blood sugar and its affects on the body was carried out over a thirteen-year period. It made up one section of a much larger study of health occurring in Sweden, called the Vasterbotten Intervention Project.

The results of the study discovered that the subjects who had the highest blood sugar levels, those in the top 25 percent, had as much as a 26 percent higher risk of cancer. Of the total subjects studied, 2,478 cases of cancer developed during the research period. Women who watched their sugar intake and ensured they maintained a healthy diet greatly reduced their chance of developing cancer.

According to Dr Par Stattin, a researcher working on the study, "Abnormal glucose metabolism was associated with a statistically significantly increased risk of cancer overall in women but not in men."

In fact the study seemed to show that increased levels of blood sugar in men seemed to give them a small amount of protection from prostate cancer, though this protection was very small.