High Levels of Insulin Increases Risk for Breast Cancer
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Insulin, a hormone that is produced by the pancreas in the body, helps the body utilize glucose properly. Proper amounts of insulin prevent hyperglycemia and the complications of diabetes.
However, new research has shown that high amounts of insulin may be harmful. Researchers have found that women with the highest levels of insulin were 50 percent more likely to develop breast cancer than women who had the lowest insulin levels.
Among these women, the influence of insulin on breast cancer risk was quite high," says lead author Marc Gunter, Ph.D. of the Albert Einstein School of Medicine at Yeshiva University, New York City and assistant professor of epidemiology and population health. "Women with the highest insulin levels in their blood were more than two times more likely to develop breast cancer than women with the lowest insulin levels." Moreover, "when we controlled for insulin, the association between obesity and breast cancer became much weaker," Dr. Gunter says. "This means that a large component of that obesity-cancer relationship may be mediated by insulin levels
