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Gestational Diabetes Increases Cancer Risk

Posted on: Thursday, 16 August 2007, 21:21 CDT

A study of mothers that gave birth in Jerusalem from l964 to l976 links gestational diabetes to a higher risk of developing pancreatic cancer later.

The research, published in the BMC Medicine, showed the gestational diabetes -- a form of diabetes that affects pregnant women who have never had diabetes before -- clearly came first, between 14 and 35 years before the pancreatic cancer. The study also noted women with type 1 diabetes at the time of birth did not go on to develop pancreatic cancer.

U.S. and Israeli researchers traced the histories of more than 37,000 mothers as part of the Jerusalem Perinatal Study. Birth records revealed 410 women were diagnosed with gestational diabetes in one or more of their pregnancies and of the 410 women with gestational diabetes, five eventually developed pancreatic cancer.

There were 54 cases of pancreatic cancer overall and none of the women with type 1 diabetes at the time they gave birth went on to develop pancreatic cancer.

Source: United Press International

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