Metabolic syndrome and cancer: New research highlights link

A recent study published in the journal Cancer found that people with metabolic syndrome are at a higher risk of developing cancer.

Metabolic syndrome is a combination of conditions which include high blood sugar, hypertension, low levels of HDL and obesity. This study, based in China, explores how metabolic syndrome raises the risk of developing a variety of cancers.

Studying over 40,000 people with some or all of the conditions common to metabolic syndrome, researchers tracked who developed cancer over a 10 year period.

The study showed that those people living with metabolic syndrome had a 30% increased risk of developing cancer in the following years.

Sheetal Hardikar, an investigator at the Huntsman Cancer Institute, who was not involved in the research, explained that the high number of people studied, the methodology and assessment are all strengths of the new research.

However, she stated it is important to explore all the metabolic risk factors, as the research used a definition of metabolic syndrome that required a person to have a large waistline combed with two other conditions.

Therefore, it is unclear to what extent the cancer risk was associated with the other metabolic syndrome conditions, independent of their waistline.