Pancreatic cancer remains one of the scariest cancers out there. Very painful and fatal in almost every case. The survival rate is dismal.
I have written before that if the resources available to Patrick Swayze and Steve Jobs were not enough to overcome this cancer, the rest of us don’t stand a chance. The good news is that pancreatic cancer is almost completely preventable.
The scary thing is that you may already be at risk. But lowering your risk starts by preventing another disease.
Given that the pancreas is our principle organ to dealing with sugar handling it should come as no surprise that the diabetic spectrum (from prediabetes to diabetes) is the problem.
Prediabetes has already been linked to almost every chronic disease, including multiple types of cancers, including pancreatic cancer. The reasons for this are many and likely have to do with the elevated levels of insulin (which causes cells to divide more—a precursor to cancer) as well as the unhealthy cells that no longer respond to the insulin in the correct manner. Elevated insulin will also lead to cancer cells having more access to sugar to divide faster (a concept known as the Warburg effect).
This particular study looks at the relationship between blood sugar levels and the risk of pancreatic cancer in 2408 patients who were diagnosed with pancreatic cancer by looking across 9 different studies.
Here’s what they found:
- The risk of pancreatic cancer went up 14% for every 10 mg/dL increase in fasting blood sugar.
The important thing to notice about this is that these results don’t talk about a blood sugar value ABOVE a certain amount. In other words, the relationship between higher blood sugar and pancreatic cancer is direct. Higher levels = higher risk. In situations like this, lower is always better and it also means that, even at NORMAL blood sugar levels, there is still an increased risk.
While it is always a good idea to live an anti-diabetic lifestyle, avoiding pancreatic cancer is an added advantage. If you’re not sure all that this entails (which is far too large of a topic for this post), feel free to check out my Diabetes eBook by clicking here.