Do glucose and lipid metabolism affect cancer development in Nagasaki atomic bomb survivors?

The relationship between lipid or glucose metabolism and cancer has not yet been elucidated. We conducted 75-g oral glucose tolerance tests (75-g OGTTs) and lipid measurements between 1983 and 1985 in 516 Nagasaki atomic bomb survivors. Excluding those who already had cancer at the baseline examinations and those who developed cancers or died of any cause within 5 yr after the baseline examinations, we determined incident cancer cases until 2000 in the remaining 451 subjects (214 males and 237 females) and evaluated, by means of the Cox proportional hazard model, whether glucose or lipid metabolism predicts cancer development. The age- and sex-adjusted relative risk (RR) for incident cancer was 0.903 (95% confidence interval, CI = 0.842-0.968), 1.740 (95% CI = 1.238-2.446), 1.653 (95% CI = 0.922-2.965), and 1.024 (95% CI = 0.996-1.053) for total cholesterol (10 mg/dl), radiation dose (1 Sv), smoking, and 1-h blood glucose (1-h BG; 10 mg/dl) in 75-g OGTTs, respectively. Multiple regression analysis of age, sex, smoking, body mass index, 1-h BG, triglycerides, total cholesterol, high-density lipoprotein cholesterol, and radiation dose also showed that total cholesterol was negatively (RR = 0.872; 95% CI = 0.793-0.958) and radiation dose positively (RR = 1.809; 95% CI = 1.252-2.613) related to incident cancer. Cholesterol could be negatively and radiation dose positively associated with cancer development independently.