THURSDAY, Sept. 24, 2026 (HealthDay News) — Add cancer to the list of health problems that can plague people with type 2 diabetes, a new study says.

Cancer affects people with type 2 diabetes twice as much as the rest of the public, researchers are slated to report at the upcoming annual meeting of the European Association for the Study of Diabetes.

Further, cases of cancer have been increasing at a faster pace among people with type 2 diabetes over the past 25 years, researchers said.

They are particularly vulnerable to cancers linked to obesity, such as breast and colon cancers, researchers found.

“These findings support greater recognition of cancer as a major long-term complication of type 2 diabetes,” lead researcher Tinne Laurberg said in a news release.

“Cardiovascular and kidney disease prevention remains a key priority in diabetes care. However, as outcomes for these complications improve, cancer may require greater attention as part of the long-term care of people with type 2 diabetes,” Laurberg said. She is a clinical associate professor of pathology with the Steno Diabetes Center Aarhus at Aarhus University Hospital in Denmark.

For the new study, researchers tracked health data for all adults living in Denmark between 1996 and 2022, taking into account when people developed either type 2 diabetes or cancer.

Results revealed cancer is twice as common among people with type 2 diabetes — 16.6 cases per 1,000 person-years compared to 7.7 cases per 1,000 among those without diabetes. Person-years reflect the total time a person is tracked during a study.

Obesity-related cancers were 45% higher among men and 30% higher among women between 2010 and 2022, researchers found.

Breast cancer was about 8% more common among women with type 2 diabetes, while colon cancer occurred 17% more often in men with diabetes and 14% more often in women, according to the study.

People with type 2 diabetes also had a risk of pancreatic cancer two and a half times that of others, researchers found.

“Our findings underline the growing cancer burden among people with type 2 diabetes and highlight the need to prioritize cancer prevention and early detection as part of long-term diabetes care,” Laurberg said.

“This is especially important for common obesity-related cancers, such as colorectal and postmenopausal breast cancer, for which screening programs already exist in many countries,” she continued. “We must ensure that people with type 2 diabetes benefit fully from these established programs by encouraging greater participation.”

However, researchers also noted that the study was not designed to explain why type 2 diabetes is linked to cancer. Further research is needed to understand this apparent association.

This study is scheduled for presentation in Milan at the European Association for the Study of Diabetes meeting, which will run from Sept. 28 to Oct. 2.

Findings presented at medical meetings should be considered preliminary until published in a peer-reviewed journal.

More information

The American Cancer Society has more about type 2 diabetes and cancer.

SOURCES: European Association for the Study of Diabetes, news release, Sept. 22, 2026; European Association for the Study of Diabetes, abstract, slide deck, Sept. 22, 2026