Weight loss drugs could slash cancer risks by 41% compared to surgery, researchers claim
Blockbuster weight loss drugs may help people avoid obesity-related cancers, new research suggests.
Obesity contributes to 13 types of cancer, and health experts are worried about the growing toll as obesity rates continue to rise globally.
The new study, published in the Lancet journal eClinicalMedicine, suggests that weight loss drugs such as Saxena or Trulicity could help curb these risks.
Researchers compared nearly 6,400 people with obesity and diabetes who either underwent bariatric surgery or took GLP-1 receptor agonists, which are weight loss drugs that work by mimicking a hormone in the body that makes people feel full for longer.
In the years after their treatments, there were 5.76 obesity-related cancer cases per 1,000 person-years among patients who had bariatric surgery, compared with a rate of 5.64 among those who took GLP-1s.
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Because surgery is more effective at lowering people's weight, the researchers concluded that weight-loss drugs could be even better at preventing obesity-related cancers – to the tune of 41 per cent, they said.
'Our study found a similar incidence of obesity-related cancer among patients treated with first-generation [GLP-1 drugs] and with bariatric surgery… despite the relative advantage of surgery in maximising weight loss,' Yael Wolff Sagy, a study author and a researcher at Clalit Health Services in Israel, said in a statement.
'But accounting for this advantage revealed the direct effect of GLP-1RAs beyond weight-loss to be 41 per cent more effective at preventing obesity-related cancer'.
Notably, though, when the researchers took people's ability to manage their blood sugar levels into account, the medicines' edge over surgery dropped to 13 per cent.
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The benefit from the drugs could be because they help reduce inflammation, the researchers said, adding that newer medicines such as Ozempic, Mounjaro, or Zepbound could have an even greater effect.
'We do not yet fully understand how GLP-1s work, but this study adds to the growing evidence showing that weight loss alone cannot completely account for the metabolic, anti-cancer, and many other benefits that these medications provide,' Sagy said.
The study is the latest to suggest drugs designed to treat obesity and type 2 diabetes could be used for much more than weight loss. Other research indicates they could help people with addiction, dementia, liver problems, and more.
But the analysis has some limitations. Only 298 people were diagnosed with obesity-related cancers during the study period, for example, and it's not clear whether people sustained their initial weight loss over time.
Larger studies with more patients could affect the statistical analysis that identified the 41 per cent risk reduction from medicines compared with surgery.
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Independent experts also noted that the study was observational, meaning the authors reviewed existing data, rather than conducting a randomised control trial where some patients receive a drug and others get a placebo or dummy treatment in order to compare their outcomes.
Randomised trials are considered the gold standard for medical research.
'Larger outcome trials are needed to understand links between such medicines and cancer risks, and several should report over the next five years,' Naveed Sattar, a professor of cardiometabolic medicine at the University of Glasgow in the UK, said in a statement.
'It is better to wait to see further large outcome trials versus placebo to get closer to the truth'.
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