Causal associations between site-specific cancer and diabetes risk: A two-sample Mendelian randomization study

Both cancer and diabetes are complex chronic diseases that have high economic costs for society. The co-occurrence of these two diseases in people is already well known. The causal effects of diabetes on the development of several malignancies have been established, but the reverse causation of these two diseases (e.g., what type of cancer can cause T2D) has been less investigated.

Multiple Mendelian randomization (MR) methods, such as the inverse-variance weighted (IVW) method, weighted median method, MR-Egger, and MR pleiotropy residual sum and outlier test, were performed to evaluate the causal association of overall and eight site-specific cancers with diabetes risk using genome-wide association study summary data from different consortia, such as Finngen and UK biobank.

A suggestive level of evidence was observed for the causal association between lymphoid leukaemia and diabetes by using the IVW method in MR analyses (P = 0.033), indicating that lymphoid leukaemia increased diabetes risk with an odds ratio of 1.008 (95% confidence interval, 1.001-1.014). Sensitivity analyses using MR-Egger and weighted median methods showed consistent direction of the association compared with the IVW method. Overall and seven other site-specific cancers under investigation (i.e., multiple myeloma, non-Hodgkin lymphoma, and cancer of bladder, brain, stomach, lung, and pancreas) were not causally associated with diabetes risk.

The causal relationship between lymphoid leukaemia and diabetes risk points to the necessity of diabetes prevention amongst leukaemia survivors as a strategy for ameliorating the associated disease burden.