Diabetes mellitus and risk of breast cancer: a large-scale, prospective, population-based study

Background The objective of this study was to evaluate associations of diabetes overall, type 1 diabetes (T1D), and type 2 diabetes (T2D) with breast cancer (BCa) risk. Methods We included 250,312 women aged 40–69 years between 2006 and 2010 from the UK Biobank cohort. Adjusted hazard ratios (aHRs) and 95% confidence intervals (CIs) were calculated for associations of diabetes and its two major types with the time from enrollment to incident BCa. Results We identified 8182 BCa cases during a median follow-up of 11.1 years. We found no overall association between diabetes and BCa risk (aHR = 1.02, 95% CI = 0.92–1.14). When accounting for diabetes subtype, women with T1D had a higher risk of BCa than women without diabetes (aHR = 1.52, 95% CI = 1.03–2.23). T2D was not associated with BCa risk overall (aHR = 1.00, 95% CI = 0.90–1.12). However, there was a significantly increased risk of BCa in the short time window after T2D diagnosis. Conclusions Though we did not find an association between diabetes and BCa risk overall, an increased risk of BCa was observed shortly after T2D diagnosis. In addition, our data suggest that women with T1D may have an increased risk of BCa.