colorectal<\/a>, ovarian, endometrial, esophageal, meningioma (a tumor of the brain lining) and multiple myeloma (blood cell cancer) \u2014 but with low certainty. The effect of GLP-1s on the risk of gastric cancer was \u201cvery uncertain,\u201d the authors wrote.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\u201cIt\u2019s not that GLP-1 does not reduce the risk of cancer; I don\u2019t think we can make that conclusion from our study,\u201d Chiang said. \u201cI would say GLP-1 [drugs] probably do not increase the risk of cancer. It\u2019s a little different.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Longer-term studies needed<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The new study has two major limitations, Chiang said. One is that none of the nearly 50 trials his team analyzed was designed to measure cancer outcomes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Dr. Kandace McGuire, chief of breast surgery at the Massey Comprehensive Cancer Center at Virginia Commonwealth University, said that might explain the counterintuitive nature of the findings.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cWhen you take a bunch of studies that weren\u2019t looking at cancer risk and you throw them together, sometimes you find things that are contrary to what you would hypothesize,\u201d said McGuire, who wasn\u2019t involved in the research. \u201cSome of that may be just the makeup of the studies, rather than the actual data itself.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cFrom a cancer prevention perspective, I think more data is needed,\u201d Chiang said, noting that there\u2019s also a lack of data on GLP-1 usage among patients who already have cancer.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Another limitation of the research was its relatively brief follow-up period of under a year and a half.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Patients prescribed GLP-1s should be monitored for far longer, particularly for slow-growing diseases like breast and thyroid cancers, McGuire said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cYou really don\u2019t know when in somebody\u2019s lifetime they\u2019re going to have a clinically significant cancer,\u201d McGuire said. \u201cWhile you may not effect a difference in the first two to three years, you may effect a difference five, 10 years down the road with continued use\u201d of GLP-1s.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Can GLP-1s increase risk of some cancers?<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The Food and Drug Administration cautions people with personal or family history of a rare form of thyroid cancer, medullary thyroid carcinoma, against taking certain GLP-1 medications. However, such boxed warnings stem from decade-old rodent research, Chiang said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cOnce there\u2019s an association with a drug, it\u2019s hard to repel that,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Findings in human studies have been mixed, according to Dr. Bassel El-Rayes, deputy director of the O\u2019Neal Comprehensive Cancer Center at the University of Alabama at Birmingham. One study, for instance, found an association between GLP-1s and increased risk of thyroid cancer, but only within the first year of medication use.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
El-Rayes said he finds the results of Chiang\u2019s research promising.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThis study gives us more reassurance about using these drugs in the treatment of things like obesity and Type 2 diabetes,\u201d said El-Rayes, who wasn\u2019t involved with the study. \u201cThere are questions left unanswered, like, Could it be protective against cancer? Could there be a small increase of risk that we\u2019re not recognizing yet?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
He added, \u201cThe patients who are using the drugs at this moment are safer than what we thought before this paper came out.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Still, El-Rayes cited tobacco-related cancers as an example of the need for longer-term GLP-1 research.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cIf you were to look at people who smoked for one year, you may not see a big impact of tobacco use,\u201d he said. \u201cYou need to follow them up for a longer time to really see the effects of tobacco on cancer development.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cOf course,\u201d he added, \u201cwe\u2019re not saying that GLP-1 [drugs] are as risky as using tobacco. We\u2019re not saying that at all.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Dr. Susan Wolver, a colleague of McGuire\u2019s, directs the Medical Weight Loss Program at VCU Health. She said that when she counsels patients on the benefits and risks of GLP-1 drugs, cancer isn\u2019t typically top of mind.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cNobody comes to me and says, \u2018I\u2019d like to go on some medication to reduce my cancer risk,\u2019\u201d said Wolver, who wasn\u2019t involved in the research. \u201cThey\u2019re going on these medications to lose weight, to improve their diabetes, their sleep apnea, their heart failure \u2014 all their obesity-related conditions, but not cancer.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Wolver praised the thoroughness of Chiang\u2019s research, noting that it broke down analyses by factors such as GLP-1 type, including older versions of the drug that were approved more than a decade ago.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Because GLP-1 drugs are relatively young \u2014 the FDA didn\u2019t approve Wegovy and Zepbound for weight loss until 2021 and 2023, respectively \u2014 physicians and scientists have much to learn of their long-term effects on the body, Wolver said. Even so, the observed benefits of GLP-1s, such as improved blood pressure and reduced odds of heart failure, outweigh known risks, she said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cI am relieved with the findings of this study that there does not appear to be any increased cancer signals,\u201d Wolver said, \u201cbut I am also not dismayed that there was no reduction in the development of cancer or metastases, because I think we just didn\u2019t have a long enough time.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Nbcnews<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Despite previous excitement around a potential link between GLP-1 drugs and a reduced risk of cancer, new research suggests the popular medications \u201cprobably have little or no effect\u201d on a person\u2019s risk of developing one of the 13 obesity-related cancers. The findings, published Monday in the Annals of Internal Medicine, may seem counterintuitive, said co-author […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":50975,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5784],"tags":[26115,35585,35586,1662],"class_list":["post-50974","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-health","tag-cancer-risk","tag-glp-1-drugs","tag-no-effect","tag-obesity"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/50974","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=50974"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/50974\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":50976,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/50974\/revisions\/50976"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/50975"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=50974"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=50974"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=50974"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}