More Fuel for the Glargine Insulin Fire
A year ago a large European study implicated high doses of glargine insulin in certain cancers in diabetics. At the time endocrinologists urged causation in interpreting the results and advisory boards urged patients and physicians not to change their insulin regimens until further studies were completed. Now the results of those studies are starting to be published.
In "Doses of Insulin and its Analogues and Cancer Occurrence in Insulin-Treated Type 2 Diabetic Patients" the authors report the results of a nested case-control study of insulin-dependent diabetics. A five fold increase in cancer was found among those taking high doses of glargine. No such increase in risk was found among those diabetics taking other forms of insulin.
