Major study suggests weightloss injections such as Ozempic reduces risk of common, deadly cancers

Revolutionary weightloss injections such as Ozempic reduce the risk of some of the most common and deadly cancers, a major study suggests.

Obese patients taking the drugs, which were produced originally to help those with diabetes, were nearly a fifth less likely to develop cancers including breast, bowel, pancreatic and ovarian.

US researchers also concluded these patients were half as likely to die over a 15-year period compared to obese patients not taking the weekly injections.

Experts believe this is because the drugs, known as GLP-1 agonists, protect against cancers related to being overweight, such as thyroid, kidney and liver.

After smoking, obesity is thought to be the second most common cause of cancer in the UK and is responsible for around one in 20 new cases every year.

The trial, presented at the American Society for Clinical Oncology conference in Chicago, is the latest to show that GLP-1 agonists have significant health benefits beyond weight loss.

In the past year, studies have concluded that semaglutide – the active ingredient in Wegovy and Ozempic – cuts the risk of heart failure and kidney failure.

It was originally developed as a diabetes treatment, but in recent years has become one of the world”s most in-demand weightloss drugs, with a host of celebrities – including Elon Musk and Boris Johnson – revealing they take it in a bid to slim down.

Research suggests that patients taking semaglutide on average lose a fifth of their body weight.

In the past year, an even more effective GLP-1 agonist, called tirzepatide, has been rolled out.

In the new study, the health of 273 obese GLP-1 agonist patients was tracked over 15 years.

Their outcomes were compared with about 400 patients who had weightloss surgery – known as bariatric surgery – as well as 20,000 obese people who received neither.

While GLP-1 agonist patients did not lose as much weight as those who got bariatric surgery, both groups were around 19 per cent less likely to develop obesityrelated cancers compared to those who received no treatment.

“Reduction in weight largely seems to be driving this reduction in cancer cases,” says Dr Cindy Lin, a sports and exercise medicine expert at Case Western Reserve University in Ohio.