GLP-1s lower risk of 10 obesity-associated cancers, study shows

New research finds that the GLP-1 class of drugs — glucagon-like peptide receptor agonists — is more effective in mitigating the risk of 10 obesity-associated cancers than its type 2 diabetes drug alternatives.

The retrospective study, published Friday in JAMA Network Open, measured results for a cohort of more than 1.6 million patients with type 2 diabetes from 2005 to 2018 who were prescribed GLP-1s, insulin, or metformin. The researchers used data from the first time point, the prescription of any of the drugs, until up to 15 years after.

Rong Xu, a professor of biomedical informatics at Case Western Reserve University and study author, said the known efficacy of GLP-1 drugs in treating weight loss and managing type 2 diabetes prompted researchers to do the study.

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