Prediabetes or type-2-diabetes and cancer risk

Cancer has become the leading cause of death among patients with type-2-diabetes (T2D). Both prediabetes and T2D increase cancer risk. Prediabetes and T2D are causally associated with gastrointestinal, gynecologic, urologic and endocrine cancers as well as leukemias. Both prediabetes and T2D raise cancer mortality by 1.2- to 2.7- fold. Mechanisms underlying the association between T2D and cancer are chronic hyperglycemia, chronic systemic inflammation, oxidative stress, dyslipidemia, insulin resistance and chronic high levels of insulin and insulin-like growth factor 1 (IGF-1). Intentional long-term weight loss reduces the cancer risk of obese T2D- patients. Both a healthy lifestyle and cancer screening are effective and can decrease cancer mortality among T2D- patients.