We all have heard of the increase in diabetes incidence in the world. It’s a worrying trend that has caused panic in the United Nations. What is even more disturbing is that diabetes is not an isolated condition. In fact, there are many other complications that arise from diabetes. We are familiar with complications of diabetes, such as blindness or gangrene setting in limbs.
However, there appears to be more bad news coming our way. Some scientists at the National Cancer Institute noticed a disconcerting rise in the incidence of liver cancer. In fact, since the 1970s, they observed that liver cancer incidence had tripled.
At the same time, obesity and type 2 diabetes incidence had also increased. So, was there a possibility that they were all perhaps linked to each other? It was a question that could be answered due to the data available from The Liver Cancer Pooling Project.
The Liver Cancer Pooling Project contains the necessary data of 1.57 million adults across the United States. The scientists performed statistical analyses on the data obtained and took into account various factors, such as race, sex, smoking, alcohol, BMI, the study center that they were enrolled. These factors were accounted for and the data was normalized following this in order to perform the comparisons for liver cancer, type 2 diabetes, waist circumference, and BMI.
The liver can be affected by the hepatitis virus or by alcohol. The scientists wanted to find out if increased BMI still had an adverse effect on the liver in the presence of the hepatitis virus. They compared 220 liver cancer patients with 547 normal individuals from the Liver Cancer Pooling Project. They tested these individuals for hepatitis virus infection. They found that those who were positive for the hepatitis virus did not show any association between liver cancer and BMI.
The next point that was looked at was the association of waist circumference with liver cancer. A total of 2,162 cases of liver cancer were diagnosed in the study. What was noted was that individuals who showed an increase in waist circumference by approximately 5 cm showed an increased risk (8%) in liver cancer in both men and women.
In the case of BMI, an increase of 5 kg per square meter increased the risk of liver cancer in men (38% increase) more than in women (25% increase). Similarly, those with type 2 diabetes showed a 2.61 times increased risk of liver cancer.
According to Dr. Peter Campbell, an author of the study that has been published in the journal Cancer Research, having type 2 diabetes can double your chances of getting liver cancer.
The picture certainly looks grim. While you may focus on getting back to a decent weight, internally, there are many changes occurring in your body due to that increased body mass.
As a preventive strategy, individuals are normally requested to maintain their weight in a normal range to avoid getting diabetes. Perhaps, it is time to add another dimension to the plot.
