Are you prediabetic and have breast cancer?

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jenrio
jenrio Member Posts: 558
edited June 2014 in Clinical Trials, Research News, Podcasts, and Study Results

I just found out I'm prediabetic with impaired insulin resistance.

Here are the things I found out:

About 20% of people 20 years and older are prediabetic.  

http://diabetes.niddk.nih.gov/dm/pubs/statistics/#Pre-diabetes 

Prediabetic patients get BC at about 3 times the rate of normal population

http://www.cancernetwork.com/conference-reports/asco2011/content/article/10165/1874808 

http://www.usatoday.com/yourlife/health/medical/cancer/2011-01-22-breast-cancer-diabetes_N.htm 

Prediabetic patients should be treated with metformin and get on low starch diet/exercise.   So check your blood sugar to make sure you are not prediabetic.

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  • wallycat
    wallycat Member Posts: 3,227
    edited June 2012

    I was prediabetic (fasting 102) several years before; brought it down with even more exercise and A1c was always in the 4.8 to 5.4 range.

    My twin had higher a1c even though her fasting of 102 did not manifest till 2 years or so ago....

    Cancer is a crap shoot.

    My mother had full blown (I believe side effects from all her meds) diabetes (insulin); never had cancer.

    I am on a low carb diet because I feel better on it. No doc is willing to put me on metformin because of my relatively decent a1C.

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  • jenrio
    jenrio Member Posts: 558
    edited June 2012

    Wallycat,

    try another endo/PCP.   Bring papers to the meeting, and your blood sugar finger poke records.   Even don't exercise for a day or two, that's how we have to do to get PET anyway.    Write a letter summarizing all research.   Don't give up, prediabetes should be treated.   Good luck!

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  • wallycat
    wallycat Member Posts: 3,227
    edited June 2012

    Jenrio, the prediabetes cutoff is fairly recent (in europe, the 110 is still the cutoff).

    When I went to college for dietetics, 110 was the cut off and 100 was the cutoff for pregnant gals, so 102 is a far cry from panic, but yes, it would be nice if we could ask for meds we feel would benefit us.

    I also asked for a beta blocker (studies indicate less cancer) and was poo pooed (high blood pressure runs in my family, but funnily enough...THAT is the one thing I have not gotten from my genes.....YET.

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  • Belinda977
    Belinda977 Member Posts: 381
    edited June 2012

    Hello.  I was a newly diagnosed diabetic one year prior to diagnosis.  I took matters into my own hands (didn't want to take the meds as I see what the result is with my family).  I lost the weight and excercised and was able to control it through that.  I have been told that increased belly fat can be a contributing factor to both diabetes and cancer.  The belly fat actually gives off hormones (one being estrogen).  My surgeon even said that me losing weight may very well have slowed the growth of the tumor.  Of course, I may still have a recurrence one day in this thinner body.  I believe it's just a "perfect storm" for each of use (environment, cell misbehaving, stress, etc).   Both my hormone receptor factors are 99% so I must keep this weight off. 

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  • jenrio
    jenrio Member Posts: 558
    edited June 2012

    Wallycat,

    I see the historic thing with prediabetics.   Guess it's a relatively new diagnosis.   the research about connection to BC is still new too.   Maybe do a GTT?   I got dxed with GTT, my veins collapsed.  but it's worth the pain to get a correct dx.   good luck.

    Belinda,  glad you got it into control.   I tried very hard, exercise 1 hour a day, eat very little carbo, BMI 20.   Still prediabetic.   It's depressing.   You should still look into metformin.  It may help.

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  • akinto
    akinto Member Posts: 97
    edited August 2012

    Just got my blood test back. It says my blood sugar is above normal, at .06. I guess I am prediabetic.

     I will speak to my PCP. This won't help my recurrence risks at all.

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  • LuvRVing
    LuvRVing Member Posts: 4,516
    edited August 2012

    I am diabetic, have been so for 11 years.  I took metformin, lost 25 pounds and followed a low carb diet all that time. I always kept my HbA1c below 6.0.   I got breast cancer regardless.  I did DD AC/T plus metformin and got to NED last fall. I was down to 122 pounds (5'2"), not much fat there.  I progressed to Stage IV this spring.  Still diabetic.

    Now, I take my metformin (2000 mg a day), I eat what I want in moderation, and I hope that the right chemo knocks me into remission.

    If only they knew for sure...

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  • lanagraves
    lanagraves Member Posts: 596
    edited August 2012

    Not prediabetic, but that would be a great persausive reason to get your onc to prescribe metformin, which by all indications, can be very helpful in some breast cancers as well.

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  • jenrio
    jenrio Member Posts: 558
    edited August 2012

    LuvRVing,

    Thanks for sharing your diabetic/BC experience.   For someone like me who just started fairly recently it's very helpful!

    If you don't mind my asking, what is your fasting glucose currently on metformin 2000mg?   What is your 1 hour/2 hour glucose?     Is this the same as the last few years?   Have you been on metformin only for 10 years, or were you on other diabetic medication too?

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  • LuvRVing
    LuvRVing Member Posts: 4,516
    edited August 2012

    Jenrio - my fasting glucose ranges from 100 - 140, depending on what I've eaten the night before.

    I don't test at one hour - that's basically a waste of strips. And I don't test that often after two hours.  Remember that I've been diabetic for a long time. I have my a1c tested on a regular basis.  The a1c of 6.0 translates to about an average of 125.  My lowest a1c score was 5.3, right after I finished chemo.  I didn't eat very much and I lost 6 pounds on  chemo. 

    I have not taken any diabetic medication except metformin. 

    As I am stage iv, I have seriously loosened up my diet.  Diabetes is not likely what will take me down.  Within reason, I eat pretty much what I want these days. 

    There are hundreds of clinical trials using metformin to prevent BC recurrences, to determine if chemo works better when combined with it, and to see if it slows down the growth rate.  I suspect my cancer has developed a resistance, as what happens with other chemo drugs in the stage iv world. 

    I hope this helps you.

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  • jenrio
    jenrio Member Posts: 558
    edited August 2012

    As I understand it, prediabetic and diabetic is a continuum.   But a big difference is how much of your pancreas is still functional and pumping out insulin by itself.

    With regard to cancer, there's a theory that cancer is NOT driven by high sugar, but high insulin.   ie, the sugar level may not be problematic if your pancreas is not pumping out high levels of insulin.

    Have you had any checks on your fasting insulin?    Thank you for this discussion.

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  • LuvRVing
    LuvRVing Member Posts: 4,516
    edited August 2012

    I do not have an excess of circulating insulin, nor do I have inflammation as measured by the c-Reactive Protein test. 

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  • jenrio
    jenrio Member Posts: 558
    edited August 2012

    I'm not saying your cancer must be insulin driven.   Just one of the theory that tries to explain why metformin works in some women.    Thanks for sharing your experiences!

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  • LuvRVing
    LuvRVing Member Posts: 4,516
    edited August 2012

    Hopefully with all the clinical trials underway using metformin, they will discover why it works. 

    Jenrio - I didn't take your comment as suggesting insulin was driving my cancer...no worries.  The bottom line is that they don't really, truly know for sure what drives cancer growth, or what causes it, or how to prevent it.  At this point, it's all theory. 

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  • Heidihill
    Heidihill Member Posts: 5,476
    edited August 2012

    cp418 just posted on LPA1 inhibition inducing dormancy in metastatic sites. I looked up what LPA is and it is an intramuscular lipid which seems to be involved in insulin signalling. Coincidence?

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  • jenrio
    jenrio Member Posts: 558
    edited August 2012

    LuvRVing,

    I often get the very insistant "I know you got BC because of this and that" from people.   I consider myself open-minded, but a lot of the possibilities are already eliminated or make no sense.   So I roll my eyes and never want to make this kind of suggestion to other patients, especially not insist on it, since I really don't know.

    Heidi,

    Insulin is one of the core drivers of life, so I would not be surprised if its imbalance is implicated in cancer.   And it's becoming a very active direction of research.  I wrote a love letter to pubmed on my blog, using insulin as example.

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  • LuvRVing
    LuvRVing Member Posts: 4,516
    edited August 2012

    Jenrio - I do think there will be some discoveries in the area of insulin receptors and cancer. There seems to be a lot of evidence pointing in that direction. As for those people who try to tell you why you got cancer, you might remind them that women who are vegans, who only eat organic, who are triathletes or teatotallers or whatever else...still get cancer. And anyone who is putting the blame on something you did is an insensitive idiot and you should just ignore such crap. If they knew what caused it, we wouldn't have 30,000 American women dying from it every year. And 240,000 new cases every year.

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  • jenrio
    jenrio Member Posts: 558
    edited August 2012

    Pity I can't ignore them because they are smarter than me and they are family.   It's human to try to make sense from the senseless.    But the BS ad campaigns by Komen really did disservice to truth, ie, metastatic breast cancer could be undetectable and unpreventable.    ie, early detection and half-***ed prevention is NOT a cure.

    I'm off track.   I actually appreciate what Komen did for breast cancer.  Pity all that politics and misinformation ad campaigns really damage its credibility.  Nancy Brinker deserve a Nobel prize if and only if there is a MBC cure from Komen money.  

    BTW, they are also launching a new clinical trial of Methotrexate for diabetic cardovascular health:

    http://www.cardiovascularbusiness.com/index.php?option=com_articles&view=article&id=34942:nih-to-test-anti-inflammatory-drugs-effect-on-mi-stroke-and-cv-death 

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  • purple32
    purple32 Member Posts: 3,188
    edited August 2012

    It's a damn crap shoot ..... crap!

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