The death of supporting gold medal actor Wu Mengda has revealed a grim situation
The death of supporting gold medal actor Wu Mengda has revealed a grim situation
Li Qing, TEDA Hospital, Tianjin University
At 17:19 on February 27, 2021, Wu Mengda, a supporting actor and national idol, passed away due to liver cancer, taking away our youth and happiness.
According to his former friends, Uncle Da was diagnosed with liver cancer before the Spring Festival this year, but it was found to be in an advanced stage and the cancer cells had spread. Then Uncle Da underwent tumor surgery and postoperative chemotherapy, but his condition deteriorated sharply and he was admitted to the ICU for treatment. In the end, due to his serious condition and poor physical foundation, the rescue was ineffective, and he left us just after the Lantern Festival.
Da Shu is also an idol of many doctors, and now the screen is full of popular science about liver cancer, but a reality that many people do not pay attention to is that diabetes is the main risk factor for cancer, and cancer has replaced cardiovascular disease as the leading cause of death for diabetic patients in some countries.
In other words, diabetes is associated with cancer, and the most closely related cancer is liver cancer.
Liver cancer is the "murderer" who "assassinated" Uncle Da, while diabetes is the "training camp" for the "killer". The main disease that really affects Uncle Da’s health is diabetes.
In the interview, Mr. Da himself admitted that he had lost his way in the early years, during which his unhealthy lifestyle laid the foundation for his physical condition. In 2000, Mr. Da was diagnosed with diabetes, and he has been suffering from diabetes for 20 years since then.
In 2014, Uncle Da was sent to the ICU for heart failure and was once critically ill; during the filming of "Wandering Earth" in 2017, his physical condition was already very bad, and he had to take oxygen immediately after the shooting was suspended; on February 9, 2021, while filming the poster of the movie "The Legend of Shaolin Temple", he suffered a sudden heart attack and was rushed to the hospital.
Coronary heart disease and heart failure are the most common complications of diabetes.
However, Uncle Da’s death revealed a grim situation.
First, diabetics are a high-risk group of tumors
The 2010 "Diabetes and Cancer Consensus Report" jointly published by the American Diabetes Society and the American Cancer Society shows that diabetics have an increased risk of developing tumors, and diabetics have a higher risk of poor prognosis and death with tumors. The highest relative risk of developing cancer in diabetes is liver cancer, pancreatic cancer, and endometrial cancer (nearly 2.0 times or higher); slightly lower is colorectal cancer, breast cancer, and bladder cancer (1.2 to 1.5 times). It is worth noting that the only cancer with a reduced risk in diabetes is prostate cancer.
However, a study from China that followed more than 500,000 people for an average of 7.1 years revealed that type 2 diabetes increases the risk of cancer, particularly liver, pancreatic, and breast cancer.
Research data show that the incidence of tumors in diabetic patients can be as high as 28.35%, much higher than the highest incidence rate of 1.16% in all age groups in the general population.
Diabetes can significantly increase cancer mortality, and breast cancer patients with diabetes have a significantly higher 5-year mortality rate than breast cancer patients without diabetes.
The Shanghai Jiao Tong University School of Medicine and others observed 410,191 adult patients with type 2 diabetes without a history of cancer diagnosed in the Shanghai Medical Union database from July 2013 to December 2016, and the follow-up ended in December 2017. A total of 8,485 newly diagnosed cancer cases were found in the study. Compared with the general population, the risk of cancer was 34% higher in male patients with type 2 diabetes, and 62% higher in female patients.
Among men, the highest risk was prostate cancer, with diabetes leading to an 86% higher risk of prostate cancer, which is very different from the observed data in the United States.
A research paper led by Academician He Jie of the National Cancer Center/Cancer Hospital of the Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences and Professor Chen Wanqing, published in The Lancet – Global Health, analyzed 23 major carcinogenic risks of various cancer types in China, including diabetes.
Cancer has also become the leading cause of death for people with diabetes in some countries
We all know that cardiovascular disease is the leading cause of death in diabetes. But this situation has quietly changed in some countries.
In the past 30 years, developed countries such as the United States and the United Kingdom have strengthened the improvement of residents’ lifestyles, such as salt reduction, weight loss, tobacco control, alcohol control, etc., as well as comprehensive measures such as strengthening the control of blood sugar, blood pressure, blood lipids, and intensive treatment for acute myocardial infarction. The number of deaths from cardiovascular diseases has dropped significantly. And compared with non-diabetic people, the improvement effect of diabetic people is better.
A large study in the UK found that overall mortality rates among men and women with diabetes fell by 32% and 31% respectively in 2018 compared to 2001.
Among people with diabetes, the proportion of deaths due to cardiovascular disease fell from 44% in 2001 to 24% in 2018. In contrast, among people with diabetes, the proportion of deaths due to cancer rose from 22% in 2001 to 28% in 2018.
The significant decrease in mortality from cardiovascular diseases has led to a shift in the leading cause of death among people with diabetes from cardiovascular causes to cancer.
However, other factors also appear to increase diabetes-related mortality, including liver disease and dementia, which may be related to factors such as longer lifespan.
In an accompanying commentary on the study, Dr. Mingyang Song of the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health noted that cancer has traditionally been considered a distinct set of diseases from diabetes. Increasing evidence supports the importance of metabolic disorders in the etiology of cancer. It is expected that at some point cancer will replace vascular disease as the leading cause of death in the general population and in people with diabetes.
Compared with non-diabetic people, people with diabetes are almost twice as likely to develop liver and pancreatic cancer, 1.5 to 2 times more likely to develop endometrial and gallbladder cancer, and 1.1 to 1.4 times more likely to develop kidney, colorectal, bladder, and breast cancer, Song wrote. Of all cancers that occurred globally in 2012, an estimated 5.7% were attributed to the combined effects of obesity and diabetes. Cancer is emerging as an important problem for people with diabetes.
All in all, the relationship between diabetes and malignant tumors is complex, with both a common pathogenic "soil" and a variety of biological connections. Therefore, removing the common dangerous "soil" of the two, "cutting" the biological connection between the two, controlling diabetes in time, and screening tumor indicators early can minimize the occurrence of tumors in diabetic patients and improve the quality of life of diabetic patients.
Uncle Da, have a good journey!
References:
Song M. Cancer overtakes vascular disease as leading cause of excess death associated with diabetes. Lancet Diabetes Endocrinol. 2021; 9 (3): 131-133.