NEW YORK - Resistance to the effects of the blood-sugar regulating hormone insulin could boost a woman's risk of endometrial cancer, a new study suggests.
Dr. Karen H. Lu of The University of Texas M.D. Anderson Cancer Center in Houston and her colleagues found that women with endometrial cancer were much more likely to have low levels of a protein secreted by fat cells known as adiponectin, which correlates with increased insulin resistance.
Obesity is a risk factor for endometriosis, Lu and her team note in the June 1 issue of Cancer. Researchers believe this is because heavier women have more circulating estrogen in their bodies, due to estrogen production by fat cells.
Lu and her colleagues set out to determine if another obesity-related factor, insulin resistance, might also be involved in endometrial cancer. They compared adiponectin levels in 117 women with endometrial cancer and 238 women with no history of cancer. They used adiponectin rather than directly measuring insulin resistance because the protein is not affected by fasting or food consumption. Study participants were divided into three groups based on their adiponectin levels: low, intermediate and high.
The researchers found that the women with cancer were nearly three times as likely as healthy women to have intermediate levels of adiponectin, and more than 10 times as likely to have low levels of the protein. The association was seen even among women who were not obese; normal weight women with low adiponectin levels were nearly 20 times as likely to have endometrial cancer.
The findings suggest that "insulin resistance may play an important role in the development of endometrial cancer, even among non-obese women," Lu and her team conclude.
SOURCE: Cancer, June 1, 2006.
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