Obesity has become a global health challenge with rates continuing to rise, particularly in disadvantaged populations. This poses a significant risk not only for conditions like diabetes and heart disease, but also for cancer, increasing the risk of more than a dozen types and leading to substantially higher cancer-related death rates among people living with severe obesity.
As obesity rates continue to climb, there is an urgent need for strategies that can reduce the associated risk of developing cancer.
Supported by $1.9 million from the Terry Fox Research Institute as part of a major cancer prevention initiative led by the Canadian Institutes of Health Research, a multidisciplinary research team based at McGill University will spend the next five years exploring whether incretin-mimetics – medications such as Ozempic that are used to treat obesity and type 2 diabetes – could also help reduce cancer risk.
Using a combination of laboratory research and clinical studies, the team aims to understand if and how these drugs influence cancer development, and to determine whether they could be repurposed as cancer prevention tools.
Incretin-mimetics are known for supporting weight loss and blood sugar control and have also been shown to reduce the risk of cardiovascular and kidney disease. Emerging evidence suggests they may help reduce harmful inflammation, which can contribute to cancer. And early findings from this team and others also suggest a link to reduced cancer risk, though this has yet to be confirmed.
In this project, researchers will study how incretin-mimetics influence cancer development in several experimental mouse models that are known to be cancer-prone. At the same time, the team will analyze clinical databases to see whether these drugs are in fact linked to a reduced cancer risk.
The project also includes a clinical study involving women with varying levels of breast cancer risk. By examining normal breast tissue samples, the team will measure changes in biomarkers linked to cancer risk and look for early signs that the drugs may influence cancer-related pathways before the disease develops.
Using the data generated across these studies, the team also hopes to determine whether any potential cancer risk reduction associated with incretin-mimetics is limited to people living with obesity, or if it extends more broadly.
“We estimate that at least one third of cancers could be prevented, and this funding gives us the opportunity to investigate an important clue that may help reduce cancer risk,” says Dr. Michael Pollak, professor at McGill University and the project’s lead.