A new study reveals promising results suggesting that weight-loss injections may help reduce the risk of breast cancer by up to 30% in overweight or obese women.
According to the study, which was presented at the American Society of Clinical Oncology conference in Chicago, women who used GLP-1 weight-loss drugs, such as Ozempic, Wegovi, and Mongaro, were less likely to develop breast cancer than those who did not use these drugs.
The researchers relied on an analysis of the health records of 94,827 women aged between 45 and 80 in the United States, all of whom underwent breast cancer screening and had a body mass index of 25 or higher, meaning they were overweight or obese.
During the study period, 2,314 women were diagnosed with breast cancer. Of the 15,107 women who used GLP-1 inhibitors, approximately 1.7% developed the disease, compared to 2.6% among women who did not use these medications.
The researchers confirmed that this reduction in risk persisted even after taking into account known risk factors such as obesity, type 2 diabetes, and breast tissue density.
Professor Elizabeth MacDonald, the lead researcher on the study, said the findings could represent an important development in understanding the relationship between weight-loss drugs and cancer prevention, noting that proving a direct protective effect of these drugs "would be a real game-changer."
However, the researchers stressed that the current findings do not definitively prove that the drugs themselves are the direct cause of the reduced risk, as part of the effect may be related to weight loss, which is known to reduce the likelihood of developing several types of cancer.
Obesity is linked to at least 13 different types of cancer, including breast, colon and pancreatic cancer, and has become one of the most prominent modifiable risk factors associated with cancer.
In a related context, another study presented results during the conference indicating that the use of weight loss injections after a cancer diagnosis may help slow the progression of the disease and improve survival rates, with the effect being most evident in lung and liver cancer patients, along with positive indications in breast and colon cancer patients.
The research team, from the University of Pennsylvania, called for large-scale clinical trials to ascertain the nature of the relationship between these drugs and cancer prevention, and to determine whether the potential benefits are due to weight loss alone or to other biological effects possessed by the drugs themselves.
