November is National Pancreatic Cancer awareness month and the statistics on this disease are sobering.

The American Cancer Society predicts that this year, more than 42,000 people in the U.S. will be diagnosed with pancreatic cancer, and more than 35,000 will die from the disease. Also the lifetime risk of developing pancreatic cancer is about 1 in 72 for both men and women.

The pancreas is responsible for producing hormones like insulin and glucagon, which help control blood sugar levels and it also produces enzymes that help breakdown protein and carbohydrates during digestion.

Although nobody can truly pinpoint what causes pancreatic cancer, researchers have identified several risk factors. For example, smokers are two to three times more likely to develop the disease. Also,African-Americans are diagnosed more frequently than other races. The risk of being diagnosed greatly increases after age 50 with pancreatic cancer being diagnosed more often in people with diabetes. In addition, chronic inflammation of the pancreas may slightly increase your risk of developing this cancer and family history could increase your chances of being positively diagnosed, with about 10% of cases thought to be related to inherited genetic mutations.

So how do doctors treat pancreatic cancer? Dr. Erin Fleener with the Cancer Clinic says, "the mainstay for Stage 4 Pancreatic Cancer patients is chemotherapy. If you have Stage 1 or even some Stage 2 Pancreatic Cancers, we usually try to remove those surgically, but even with surgery these patients tend to relapse within the first three or four years, so it's not a totally incurable problem, if you're able to have surgery, but a lot of those patients do relapse."

Fleener also adds that in some cases, radiation is also used to treat the cancer.

As for symptoms, at least 50% of people with pancreatic cancer experience jaundice, a yellowing of the skin and whites of the eyes.

Other symptoms include weight loss, glucose intolerance, fatigue, abdominal discomfort or pain, a sudden onset of diabetes, and urine produced could be brown or orange.

Unfortunately, there are no proven means of preventing pancreatic cancer, but not smoking or not starting to smoke is highly suggested.