Can Diabetes Be A Warning Sign Of Pancreatic Cancer?

New research has suggested that diabetes can be an early warning sign that you may have a disease of your pancreas, such as pancreatic cancer. The pancreas and diabetes are intricately connected. While diabetes is a systemic disease that affects several organs throughout the body, the pancreas plays a big role in initiating the disease.

What is the pancreas?

The pancreas is an organ buried deep within your abdomen and is located behind your stomach. It plays an important role in digestion by producing enzymes and hormones that can help digest the food you eat.

One specific hormone that the pancreas produces, insulin, is absolutely necessary to help cells absorb the glucose available in the body. Therefore, a lack of insulin leads to increases in blood glucose levels. When glucose accumulates in your bloodstream, you develop a condition known as hyperglycemia. When you have low glucose in your blood stream, you develop a condition known as hypoglycemia.

So, what is the connection between diabetes and the pancreas?

Each type of diabetes, including type 1, type 2 and gestational diabetes, involve the pancreas not working efficiently. However, the way in which the pancreas malfunctions is dependent on the type of diabetes. Since diabetes and the pancreas are connected so intimately, diseases related to the pancreas can cause diabetes down the road and vice versa. In particular, there is a connection between diabetes and pancreatic cancer.

So, does diabetes cause pancreatic cancer?

Studies have shown that people who have had diabetes for more than five years, have an increased risk of developing pancreatic cancer. Having long-standing diabetes means your risk of cancer goes up 1.5 to two times. However, diabetes is also connected to the development of chronic pancreatitis (inflammation of the pancreas); another risk factor for pancreatic cancer. Thus, if you have diabetes and chronic pancreatitis, you have an even higher risk of developing pancreatic cancer.

Other factors that contribute to pancreatic cancer and can increase your risk of developing the disease if you are diabetic include:

• Smoking
• A family history of pancreatic cancer
• Being obese
• Specific genetic syndromes

Can pancreatic cancer cause diabetes?

If you have had well-controlled diabetes for a long time, suddenly notice a spike in your blood sugar levels, and you can’t seem to control them, it could be a sign that you have pancreatic cancer. In fact, diabetes is a symptom of pancreatic cancer. One study showed that 50 percent of people diagnosed with pancreatic cancer were also diagnosed with type 2 diabetes in the past year. Additionally, rapidly deteriorating diabetes could also indicate pancreatic cancer.

Unfortunately, in the early stages of the disease, pancreatic cancer does not cause symptoms and people usually only receive a diagnosis once it is advanced. Therefore, if you notice uncontrolled sugar levels after a long period of well-managed diabetes, then should get checked out.

Scientists believe that this occurs because pancreatic cancer can influence the cells in your body to become resistant to the effects of insulin. In other conditions that cause insulin resistance (such as obesity), insulin-producing cells try to overcome insulin resistance by making more insulin. However, pancreatic cancer causes insulin-producing cells to not try to compensate, leading to diabetes.

Age also plays a big role when it comes to the development of pancreatic cancer in diabetes patients. If you develop diabetes after you turn 50, you have an almost one percent risk of being diagnosed with pancreatic cancer within one to three years of the initial diabetes diagnosis. This essentially means that the pancreatic cancer is what caused diabetes.

It is often difficult to determine what came first, the cancer or diabetes. Both diseases share common risk factors, including a poor diet, being sedentary, being obese, and aging.

What kind of diabetes develops as a result of pancreatic cancer?

Interestingly, the type of diabetes that emerges from pancreatic cancer is different from the common type 1 or type 2 diabetes. A new type of diabetes develops, known as type 3c diabetes, which is caused by diseases of the pancreas (including pancreatic cancer). One of the symptoms associated type 3c diabetes is weight loss, which is different from type 2 diabetics who gain weight.

Outlook for diabetics

The outlook for pancreatic cancer is devastating, with less than five out of 100 people being alive five years after being diagnosed with the disease. However, the low rates of survival are directly related to the fact that patients don’t present with symptoms until its more advanced stages.

If you have diabetes, you don’t necessarily have to worry about developing pancreatic cancer. Even though diabetes increases your risk of pancreatic cancer, it doesn’t mean that you will, but just that the risk (which is low to begin with) is slightly higher. If you are worried about the potential of developing pancreatic cancer, you can make the following lifestyle changes which will reduce your risk:

• Quit smoking
• Limit your alcohol intake
• Exercise regularly
• Have a healthy diet
• Lose weight if you are obese
• Keep your blood sugar levels under control