High fasting blood sugar tied to development of pancreatic cancer: Study

Sweden: Impaired fasting blood sugar levels in people aged >55 are associated with pancreatic cancer risk, show results from a recent nested case-control study. 

The study findings, published in the journal Pancreatology, impaired fasting glucose is an independent risk factor and should be studied further in risk assessment of pancreatic cancer including other risk factors in a larger study population. 

Sara Jacobson, Surgery, Umeå University, Umeå, Sweden, and colleagues aimed to determine the risk association between fasting blood sugar levels and pancreatic cancer using systematically collected prediagnostic blood glucose samples in a prospective nested case-control study.

The study included participants from the Northern Sweden Health and Disease Study, including 182 cases that developed pancreatic cancer and four matched controls per case. The researchers analyzed blood sugar levels collected up to 24 years before pancreatic cancer diagnosis. Using the likelihood-ratio test, t-test, and log-rank test, the association between fasting glucose and the time to pancreatic cancer diagnosis, tumor stage and survival was determined.