Research Teams Led by Professor Jeon Yong-kwan and Professor Kim Nam-kyu Researchers have known for some time that people with type 2 diabetes have an increased risk of developing colorectal cancer; now, a recent study on Korean patients with colorectal cancer shows that type 2 diabetes decreases the survival rate for patients with colon cancer. The results of the study, conducted by research teams led by Professor Jeon Yong-kwan (Sport and Leisure), Professor Kim Nam-kyu (Severance Hospital), and Professor Meyerhardt (Harvard Cancer Center), were published February 6th in PLOS ONE. The research included 4,131 stage I-III colorectal cancer patients treated between 1995 and 2007 in Korea. The findings show that mortality rate of colon cancer patients with type 2 diabetes increased 46%, while the rate of cancer recurrence increased 32%. For men under 60 with colon cancer and type 2 diabetes, the mortality rate increased 104%, while the mortality rate for patients with proximal colon cancer and type 2 diabetes increased 108%. In rectal cancer patients with type 2 diabetes, however, there was no increase in the mortality rate or recurrence rate. Previous studies, which attributed to type 2 diabetes an increase in the mortality rate of colorectal cancer patients, all included colon cancer and rectal cancer patients in one group. This study, then, was the first to distinguish between colon cancer and rectal cancer patients with type 2 diabetes.