Diabetes and Cancer: Is there a Link?

Abstract

Cancer and diabetes are two major health problems worldwide, and incidence is increasing globally for both diseases. Type 2 diabetes is characterized by hyperinsulinemia and insulin resistance and the effect of insulin and insulin growth factor I on cancer development and progression have been demonstrated in animal and human studies. The relationship between diabetes and cancer was reported for more than 60 years. Many epidemiological studies conducted over time suggested the association between diabetes and cancer.Epidemiological studies show an increased risk in type 2 diabetic patients for colon, breast, liver, pancreas, bladder cancers and non-Hodgkin's lymphoma, and a decrease risk for prostate cancer. Lung cancer does not appear to be related to diabetes and for renal cancer data are inconclusive. Diabetes, beside the fact that it is an independent risk factor for different type of cancer, can also have an impact on prognosis of cancer, and studies shown an increased cancer mortality in patients with diabetes.

Diabetic neuropathy: A narrative review of risk factors, classification, screening and current pathogenic treatment options (Review)

“…Indeed, the frequency of DN was related to the number of packs of cigarettes smoked per year (24). There are other factors involved in DN development, including obesity, metabolic syndrome, insulin resistance, alcohol consumption, platelet activation and increased aggregability, low vitamin D, subclinical inflammation (25,26), a paraneoplastic syndrome in different cancers (27)(28)(29), associated chemotherapy treatment (30), genetic factors (31), and increased oxidative stress (32,33).…”

Identification of Flavonoid C-Glycosides as Promising Antidiabetics Targeting Protein Tyrosine Phosphatase 1B

“…While the economic importance of flavonoids and their related compounds, such as orientin, vitexin, isoorientin, and apigenin, is far-reaching and in fact, speculated to be reaching 1.2 billion US dollars by 2024 [21], the great need for more studies on the effectiveness of these compounds on diabetes-related enzymes especially PTP1B for effective management of T2DM is important. In fact, flavonoid C-glycosides such as orientin and hesperetin have found therapeutic applications in the management of ailments such as hypertension, inflammation, cancer, and Alzheimer, identified as risk factors of T2DM [5,20,[22][23][24][25][26][27]. Although some flavonoid C-glycosides have been previously evaluated as PTP1B inhibitors [14,20], the exact mechanism of molecular interactions between the compounds and the amino acid residues at the binding pockets of PTP1B is still lacking to date.…”