Excess body weight can increase the risk of certain types of cancer, leading researchers to wonder whether popular medications such as Wegovy, Ozempic, and Zepbound could play a role in preventing the disease.

A new study involving 170,000 people shows that among older Americans with diabetes who take these popular drugs, the risk of obesity-related cancers is slightly lower compared to those who use another class of diabetes medications that are not associated with weight loss.
Such studies cannot prove a definitive cause-and-effect relationship, but the results suggest a possible link that warrants further investigation. More than a dozen types of cancer are linked to obesity.

“This is a call to scientists and clinical researchers to continue working in this area to confirm or refute this association,” said Dr. Ernest Hawk of the MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston, who was not involved in the study.

The findings were announced by the American Society of Clinical Oncology and will be discussed at its annual meeting in Chicago. The study, funded by the US National Institutes of Health, was led by Lucas Mavromatis, a medical student at New York University's Grossman School of Medicine. | BGNES