Marie-Claude Rousseau, lead author on the study, compared 3,288 men diagnosed with 12 different cancer types to 509 healthy individuals, in order to determine whether those reporting a prior diagnosis of diabetes were more likely to have cancer.

"Among those who reported being diabetic, there was a three-fold increased risk for liver cancer," said Rousseau, a postdoctoral fellow in Epidemiology at the Université de Montréal, Montreal, Canada. "When we looked at the individuals who reported taking medication for their diabetes, the risk for liver cancer increased to almost four-fold, compared to individuals who were not diabetic." Rousseau noted that these findings were independent of the body mass index of the individuals.