Diabetes Linked to Higher Risk of Breast Cancer

Diabetes increases breast cancer risk in postmenopausal women, according to a new study published in Cancer Causes and Control. Researchers followed 52,657 women with diabetes and 30,210 women without diabetes and tracked who developed breast cancer and whether diabetes medication could alter their breast cancer risk. Postmenopausal women with diabetes had a 12 percent greater risk of developing breast cancer, compared with women without diabetes, and diabetes medications appeared to do nothing to lower breast cancer risk. A 2010 report from the American Cancer Society and the American Diabetes Association found that having diabetes more than doubled the risk of pancreatic, liver, and endometrial cancers and also increased the risk of breast, bladder, and colorectal cancer.