Type 2 Diabetes Dramatically Heightens Dementia, Cancer Risk

A study from researchers at Melbourne's Baker Heart and Diabetes Institute suggests that Australians with type 2 diabetes have a threefold elevated risk for deadly cancer and a 60 percent higher risk for dementia than the general populace, reports the Sydney Morning Herald . The investigators reviewed the health outcomes of more than two million people diagnosed with type 2 diabetes. Those individuals were up to three times more likely to develop pancreatic cancer and twice as likely to develop liver or endometrial cancer, and also had a 50 percent greater chance of being diagnosed with bowel cancer and a 20 percent greater risk of breast cancer. The researchers suspect this hazard could be linked to the role of insulin, or possibly to elevated sugar levels. Meanwhile, the underlying processes of diabetes development are believed to damage small blood vessels in the brain, a likely contributor toward vascular dementia. "One of the causes of dementia are strokes or many small strokes, which are never seen as individual strokes," said Baker Institute Professor Jonathan Shaw. "Strokes are far more common in people with diabetes, just like heart attacks."