Insulin resistance—best known as a driver of diabetes and a contributor to cardiovascular, kidney, and liver disease—may also play a far larger role in cancer risk than previously understood. In a study of half a million UK Biobank participants, researchers led by the University of Tokyo used a machine‑learning model to show that insulin resistance is a risk factor for 12 types of cancer, offering the first population‑scale evidence of this long‑suspected link. Insulin resistance affects daily life in ways that often go unnoticed. When the body stops responding properly to insulin—a hormone that regulates blood glucose—blood sugar levels rise, metabolic pathways shift, and long‑term damage accumulates. The condition is a fundamental cause of type 2 diabetes and is tightly associated with obesity, but it also contributes to other diseases. Despite its broad impact, insulin resistance has been notoriously difficult to measure directly in clinical settings, limiting researchers’ ability to understand its full consequences. That challenge prompted Yuta Hiraike, MD, PhD, and colleagues at the University of Tokyo to turn to artificial intelligence. The team recently developed a machine‑learning tool called AI‑IR, which predicts insulin resistance using nine standard clinical measurements collected during routine health checkups. “We recently made a tool, AI‑IR, for predicting insulin resistance in individuals based on nine different pieces of medical information,” Hiraike said. “It proved successful and made us think we could apply this tool to related concerns.” One of those concerns was cancer. Although scientists have long suspected a link between insulin resistance and…
