Women with a history of gestational diabetes may be at a greater risk of developing pancreatic cancer later in life, Dr. Mary C. Perrin and colleagues write in their report. To investigate possible correlation between gestational diabetes and pancreatic cancer, the research team looked at data of more than 37,000 Israeli mothers who gave birth between 1964 and 1976.

In this 37,000 strong cohort, 410 mothers developed gestational diabetes, 5 of whom eventually suffered from pancreatic cancer. Overall, there were 54 cases of pancreatic cancer in the cohort, putting women with gestational diabetes at approximately 7-times greater relative risk for pancreatic cancer.

Causal relationship between diabetes and pancreatic cancer has long been a matter of medical debate, particularly which is the cause and which is the consequence? On the one hand, patients, diagnosed with diabetes many years ago have been shown to be at increased risk for pancreatic cancer, while on the other hand, individuals with newly diagnosed pancreatic cancer frequently develop recent onset diabetes, with the condition often improving once the tumor has been removed. In this study gestational diabetes appeared to be the cause of pancreatic cancer, which developed 14 to 35 years after the diagnosis of diabetes, with a median* age of 58 (range 42 to 76).

*The median is the middle of a distribution: half the scores are above the median and half are below the median (more).

Because women with gestational diabetes demonstrated a 7.1-fold increase in relative risk of pancreatic cancer, authors of the study concluded that gestational diabetes is strongly related to the risk of pancreatic cancer and that it can precede cancer diagnosis by many years.

Sources: Gestational Diabetes Increases Risk Of Pancreatic Cancer Later In Life (Medical News Today), Gestational Diabetes Strongly Related to Risk of Pancreatic Cancer (Medscape)