Scientists believe weight loss hits like Ozempic and Mounjaro could be crucial in turning the tide on the rise in colorectal cancers in young people.
Experts will carry out pioneering trials to test the theory that the injections can prevent changes in gut bacteria that are thought to precede cancer in people at high risk of the disease.
Over the past two decades, cancer cases have risen twice as fast among those under 50 as among those over 75, leaving scientists and doctors baffled.
More recently, ’90s heartthrob and Dawson’s Creek star James Van Der Beek announced that he had been diagnosed with colorectal cancer at the age of just 47.
The increase is mysterious, but experts suspect that ultra-processed foods, pollution and overuse of antibiotics could be causing microscopic, cancer-causing changes in the body’s cells.
Now a team of scientists from five countries, including King’s College London, have received £20 million from charities including Cancer Research UK to fund new studies that will begin early next year. The times reported.
Led by Professor Andrew Chan of Harvard University, experts in the US will carry out clinical trials that involve giving patients with a history of polyps (growths that can turn into cancer) semaglutide drugs such as Ozempic and Mounjaro, to see if this reduces early onset tumors.
Previous studies have shown how fat-melting injections could prevent up to 10 types of cancer, including pancreatic, kidney and ovarian cancer.
Actor James Van Der Beek took to social media on Sunday afternoon to reveal that he has been diagnosed with cancer.
Funding came from Cancer Research UK and the Bowelbabe Fund, which was set up by BBC presenter Dame Deborah James before she died from bowel cancer in 2022 at the age of 40, after being diagnosed at just 35.
American scientists, who conducted a previous trial published in the journal Open JAMA NetworkHe said his findings show the “potential benefits” of the drugs in people at higher risk for these diseases.
Researchers are still not sure exactly why the drugs, which belong to a class of drugs called GLP-1 agonists that prevent one from feeling hungry, might reduce a patient’s chances of cancer.
However, some experts believe they could help stimulate the growth of healthy bacteria in the gut and prevent those linked to colon cancer from thriving.
“We know that GLP-1, the active ingredient in weight loss drugs, can help reduce intestinal inflammation and protect against harmful bacteria that have been linked to cancer,” said Professor Sarah Berry, professor of science. nutritional studies from King’s College London. he told MailOnline.
One theory that has been explored in depth is that the rise in young cancers is triggered by a simultaneous increase in waistlines in the UK.
Since the early 1990s, the proportion of adults in England who are overweight or obese has risen from 52.9 per cent to 64.3 per cent, and the proportion who are obese has almost doubled, rising from 14.9 per cent. to 28.0 per cent, NHS figures show. .
Being obese and having higher fat mass is known to increase the risk of colorectal cancer, as well as 12 other types of cancer.
Having too much body fat causes the level The amount of growth hormones in the body increases, causing cells to divide more frequently, explains Cancer Research UK.
Each of these additional divisions represents another potential opportunity for cancer cells to appear, increasing the chances of getting the disease.
Another factor that increases the risk is that immune cells are attracted to areas of the body where there are many fat cells.
This can cause a spike in inflammation in these areas, causing cells to divide faster, again increasing the risk of disease.
A 2023 study, published in JAMA Oncologyfound that people taking weight-loss injections had a 44 percent lower risk of colorectal cancer compared to diabetics treated with insulin.
However, the authors believed that the weight loss effect only partially explained the reduction in cancer risk, since even those who were not obese had their risk of colon cancer reduced.
Professor Berry will also use the £20 million charitable fund to research how changes to our diet can affect the gut microbiome.
He previously discovered that different species of intestinal bacteria produce different chemicals, some of which can cause changes in cells in the intestine and cause cancer.
To test this theory, he will set up a trial using identical volunteer twins from Twins UK, a registry of 15,000 twins based at King’s.
A human trial, starting early next year, will give patients weight-loss vaccines, such as Ozempic and Mounjaro, to see if they can reduce cancer rates.
One twin in each pair will be given dietary advice aimed at reducing the risk of bowel cancer, which may include reducing red meat consumption and increasing fiber consumption. The other twin will be asked to simply eat normally.
Your microbiomes will be monitored and compared for changes in chemicals and bacteria thought to cause cancer.
Professor Berry will also be seeking thousands of volunteers for another experiment that will also test whether dietary adjustments can prevent changes in the microbiome that have been linked to cancer.
The projects, led by Dr. Yin Cao, an oncology epidemiologist at Washington University in St. Louis, Missouri, and Professor Andrew Chan, a Harvard-based cancer specialist, will involve collaboration with experts from the United Kingdom, the United States United States, India, France and Italy.
“In the United States, if you compare those born in 1990 with those born in 1950, at the same age, those born in 1990 have twice the risk of colon cancer and four times the risk of rectal cancer,” he said. Dr. Cao. He added that the data is similar for the United Kingdom.
The incidence of bowel cancer, which kills 17,000 people a year in the UK, has increased by 22 per cent among under-50s over the past 30 years.
The new collection of studies, called Prospect, will analyze data from ten million people around the world, looking for links between their environment, education and lifestyle and their cancer risk.
Everything from pollution levels, the amount of green space near a person’s home and even caesarean section rates will be analyzed to reveal new carcinogens – substances that can cause cancer.
In addition to human trials, researchers will also introduce risk factors, such as contaminants, into animals in a laboratory to see if they develop cancer.