By David Liu, Ph.D.

Friday July 29, 2011 (foodconsumer.org) -- Savvy food consumers who visit foodconsumer.org often may have known this:  elevated levels of insulin-like growth factor 1 promotes progression and metastasis of malignancies or commonly called cancers.

Anne Marij G. Burgers at Leiden University Medical Center in The Netherlands and colleagues have now found both high and low levels of IGF-1 were linked to high risk of death.

Eating fructose and high fructose corn syrup IGF-1 boosts the production of IGF-1 which was also found  associated with some biomarkers for high risk of heart disease, according to a new study released this month. The study was conducted by Kimber Stanhope, Ph. D., of the University of California, Davis and colleagues.

IGF-1 has been associated with a number of cancers including breast cancer and colorectal cancer to say the least. One reason that diabetes patients are at high risk for cancer is because of high levels of IGF-1.

The current study is a review of 12 previous studies involving 14,906 participants. Compared to the IGF-1 level in the middle centile, low levels and high levels of IGF-1 were associated with 27 percent and 18 percent increased risk of death from all causes, respectively. 

The study was released online on July 27, 2011 on the website of the Journal of Clinical Endocrinology and Metabolism.