As continue reshaping the treatment of obesity and diabetes, researchers are also investigating whether the drugs could influence cancer risk and outcomes.
The American Association for Cancer Research’s 2026 Cancer Progress Report, released earlier this month, noted that obesity is a major risk factor for many cancers.
As glucagon-like peptide-1 medications â including semaglutides like Ozempic and Wegovy, and tirzepatides like Mounjaro and Zepbound â are known to cause substantial weight loss and improve metabolic health, they have attracted significant interest among cancer researchers.
POPULAR WEIGHT-LOSS DRUGS MAY HELP PROTECT AGAINST A DEADLY DISEASE, DOCTOR SAYS
While the AACR report cited studies suggesting GLP-1 medications may reduce the risk of certain cancers, it emphasized that the is mixed and more research is needed.
“Randomized clinical trials remain the gold standard … however, such trials have not yet been conducted specifically to assess cancer outcomes associated with GLP-1 RA use,” the report stated.
Sai Yendamuri, M.D., a thoracic surgeon at Roswell Park Comprehensive Cancer Center in Buffalo, New York, reiterated that obesity is a leading cause of cancer, second to smoking. Additional risk factors include alcohol and , he noted, “which are all layered into obesity.”
“So if obesity is related to cancer â both in terms of causing it and increasing its progression â the logical question is, would a drug that decreases obesity have an impact?” the doctor, who was not associated with the AACR report, said in an interview with Fox News Digital.
OZEMPIC-STYLE DRUGS LINKED TO MAJOR SLOWDOWN IN CANCER SPREAD, NEW STUDY FINDS
There are “many lines of evidence” that suggest this would be the case, Yendamuri suggested.
“For example, when people studied patients who were having to decrease obesity, for example, the incidence of cancer decreased in those patients.”
Researchers then started looking at patients who were on GLP-1 receptor agonists, such as Ozempic.
“And then they compared the incidence of cancer in those patients to patients who were not taking GLP-1 receptor agonists â and many of those studies found that the risk of cancer was lower and the survival was higher in the patients taking GLP-1s,” the doctor said.
DR OZ LINKS OBESITY TO CHRONIC DISEASE SURGE, SAYS GLP-1S CAN ‘JUMPSTART’ BETTER HEALTH
Although the majority of studies showed this effect, Yendamuri noted that some did not identify a relationship â and a couple of studies even showed an increased risk of some specific cancers, such as thyroid cancer.
“The reason you find this disconnect ⦠is because these are retrospective studies,” he said. “That is, they look at existing data, and they’re trying to derive associations from existing data ⦠but there are many other variables that can impact the result.”
Yendamuri and his team of researchers have conducted their own studies of the relationship between obesity and lung cancer.
“We have found in every investigation we’ve done that obesity does increase the risk of lung cancer,” he shared.
<a href="https://foxnews.com/health/cancer-tr
