Is there a relationship between diet, obesity and colorectal cancer? Elizabeth Tracey reports

Podcast: Download (Duration: 1:03 — 1.5MB)

Subscribe: RSS

A new, comprehensive study takes a look at lifestyle factors and colorectal cancer in younger people and fails to find a relationship. Kimmel Cancer Center director William Nelson at Johns Hopkins says he thinks it may be more subtle and possibly mediated through the hormone insulin.

Nelson: To make sure that the blood glucose doesn't rise too much when we eat carbohydrates, insulin then holds that in check. Oftentimes more and more insulin is needed to hold it in check some people have called this syndrome prediabetes or using a lot of insulin to keep your sugar in check. The key to that is insulin itself and many of the insulin like growth factors are growth factors for cancers, they make cancers grow faster. They probably don't cause the cancer but they'll probably make it grow. I wonder if some of that's in place, so it's not obesity per se but it's the same thing that causes obesity. Just in some people it causes more of a prediabetes syndrome.    :32

Nelson notes that more precise measurement and repeated measurements over time will likely be needed to assess insulin’s role. At Johns Hopkins, I’m Elizabeth Tracey.