Friday, October 5 HealthDay News)-drinkers and heavy smokers can develop pancreatic cancer at a younger age than other people, according to a new study.
The average age at which patients are diagnosed with pancreatic cancer is 72, according to the American Cancer Society.
But this study of more than 800 patients of pancreatic cancer that heavy smokers were diagnosed in above the age of 62 and drinkers at the age of 61 - a decade before the average age at the time of diagnosis.
Heavy smokers were defined as those who smoked more than one pack of cigarettes a day and drinkers were those who averaged three drinks per day.
The study also found drinkers were diagnosed with cancer of the pancreas at a younger age than those who drank other types of alcohol, such as wine or liquor from beer. But when the researchers took the amount of alcohol consumed in mind, the type of alcohol did not affect the age at diagnosis.
The good news was that they can reverse the harmful effects of heavy smoking and drinking. Ten years after renouncing their unhealthy habits, drinkers and former smokers did not have an increased risk of being diagnosed with cancer of the pancreas in an early age.
The study was published online on August 28 in the American Journal of Gastroenterology.
The findings could help determine at what age should begin detection of pancreatic cancer, once widespread screening is available.
"How to develop programs of research, an understanding of the influence of personal characteristics as the age of presentation is important to optimize the time of these projections," internal author of main study and gastroenterologist Dr. Michelle Anderson, Assistant Professor of medicine at the University of Michigan health system, said at a UMHS press release.
Although the study found associations between drinking, smoking and diagnosis of cancer of the pancreas at younger ages, did not demonstrate cause and effect relationships.
More information
The American cancer society has more about cancer of the pancreas.
Source: University of Michigan Health System, press release, October 01, 2012
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