By CARLA Okay. JOHNSON
Extra physique weight can elevate the danger of sure cancers, main researchers to wonder if blockbuster medication like Wegovy, Ozempic and Zepbound may play a job in most cancers prevention.
Now, a examine of 170,000 affected person information suggests there’s a barely decrease danger of obesity-related cancers in U.S. adults with diabetes who took these well-liked medicines in comparison with those that took one other class of diabetes drug not related to weight reduction.
Any such examine can’t show trigger and impact, however the findings trace at a connection price exploring. Greater than a dozen cancers are related to weight problems.
“It is a name to scientists and scientific investigators to do extra work on this space to essentially show or disprove this,” stated Dr. Ernest Hawk of MD Anderson Most cancers Middle in Houston, who was not concerned within the examine.
The findings have been launched Thursday by the American Society of Scientific Oncology and will likely be mentioned at its annual assembly in Chicago. The examine, funded by the Nationwide Institutes of Well being, was led by Lucas Mavromatis, a medical scholar at New York College’s Grossman Faculty of Medication.
“Power illness and continual illness prevention are a few of my passions,” stated Mavromatis, a former analysis fellow with an NIH coaching program.
GLP-1 receptor agonists are injections used to deal with diabetes, and a few are additionally permitted to deal with weight problems. They work by mimicking hormones within the intestine and the mind to manage urge for food and emotions of fullness. They don’t work for everybody and might produce unintended effects that embody nausea and abdomen ache.
Within the examine, researchers analyzed information from 43 U.S. well being programs to check two teams: folks with weight problems and diabetes who took GLP-1 medication and different folks with the identical circumstances who took diabetes medication like sitagliptin. The 2 teams have been equal in measurement and matched for different traits.
FILE – The injectable drug Ozempic is proven, July 1, 2023, in Houston. (AP Photograph/David J. Phillip, File) After 4 years, those that took GLP-1 medication had a 7% decrease danger of creating an obesity-related most cancers and an 8% decrease danger of demise from any trigger in comparison with those that took the opposite kind of diabetes drug. There have been 2,501 new circumstances of obesity-related most cancers within the GLP-1 group in comparison with 2,671 circumstances within the different group.
The impact was evident in girls, however not statistically vital in males. The examine couldn’t clarify that distinction, however Mavromatis famous that variations in blood drug focus, weight reduction, metabolism or hormones may very well be at play.
The Related Press Well being and Science Division receives help from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Science and Academic Media Group and the Robert Wooden Johnson Basis. The AP is solely liable for all content material.
Initially Revealed: Could 22, 2025 at 5:38 PM EDT
