The cancer in question is colon cancer, a type of colorectal cancer – the latter of which is the third most common cancer in the US and the third leading cause of cancer death, as per the American Cancer Society.There’s been a consistent two percent annual increase in colorectal cancer cases among 20 to 39 year olds since the mid 1990s, with diets rich in processed food and red meat, lack of exercise and a sedentary lifestyle thought to be contributing to the rise.
But UC San Diego scientists found that colon cancer patients using GLP-1 medications were significantly less likely to die within five years than those who weren’t taking them.
Using data from the University of California Health Data Warehouse, some 6,871 patients were analyzed.
The five-year mortality rate was 15.5 percent for GLP-1 users compared to 37.1 percent for non-users.
Even after adjusting for factors like age, body mass index (BMI), disease severity, and other health conditions, patients taking GLP-1 drugs maintained a much lower risk of death.However those with a BMI of more than 35 were impacted the most, indicating that GLP-1 medications might help counteract the inflammatory and metabolic issues that can worsen colon cancer outcomes.
Researchers point to several possible explanations, including that GLP-1 receptor agonists don’t just regulate blood sugar, but they also reduce inflammation, enhance insulin sensitivity and promote weight loss.
Together, these effects could weaken pathways that fuel tumor growth.
Lab studies also show that GLP-1 drugs may help stop cancer cells from growing, possibly killing them, and change the area around tumors in ways that slow the disease.However, the study’s author, Raphael Cuomo, Ph.D., an associate professor in the Department of Anaesthesiology at UC San Diego School of Medicine and a member of the UC San Diego Moores Cancer Center, stresses that further research is needed to confirm whether these benefits stem from a true anti-cancer effect or from the drugs’ broader impact on metabolic health.
He has issued a call for urgent clinical trials to test whether GLP-1 drugs can improve cancer survival rates, especially for patients with obesity-related cancers.
Scientists develop vaccine that could wipe out world’s deadliest cancer
It has delivered never-seen-before results
A vaccine that could help fight one of the deadliest forms of cancer is in the works – and could one day become a reality.
Scientists have been working hard to help cure various forms of the disease for decades now.
And they could be on the edge of a breakthrough, with a pancreatic cancer vaccine delivering never-seen-before results in preclinical trials.
Pancreatic cancer accounts for three percent of all cancers in the US and eight percent of all cancer deaths, according to the American Cancer Society.
Around 67,440 people – 34,950 men and 32,490 women – are forecast to be diagnosed with pancreatic cancer in 2025.
The most common form is pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma (PDAC) – the deadliest and most stubborn manifestation of the disease.While the exact cause of PDAC is not always known, there are a number of risk factors, including genetic mutations, chronic pancreatitis, and lifestyle factors including smoking, alcohol and obesity.
PDAC has a poor prognosis as it presents so late, with early-stage symptoms often going undetected.
And while treatments including chemotherapy and surgery can extend survival, they are rarely able to cure the aggressive disease.
But now, researchers at Case Western Reserve University may have just changed the game.
It’s said that prevention is better than cure – and scientists have developed a vaccine that trains the immune system to hunt and destroy ‘bad’ cells.
The scientists created nanoparticles carrying antigens, which teach the immune system to recognize and attack pancreatic cancer cells.
This encourages the body to create its own T cells, which are equipped to better fight against the cancer, while building up ‘immune memory’ for longer-term protection.The researchers plan to combine the vaccine with immune checkpoint inhibitors, a type of drug that stops cancer from ‘turning off’ the immune system.
It delivered ‘never seen before’ results, with more than half of the test subjects remaining completely cancer-free for months.
“Pancreatic cancer is super aggressive,” said Zheng-Rong Lu, the M. Frank Rudy and Margaret C. Rudy Professor of Biomedical Engineering in the Case School of Engineering. “So it came as a surprise that our approach works so well.”
So far, the jab has only been tested on ‘preclinical models,’ which could include cell-based and animal models.“We’ve shown that our vaccine generated immune memory in preclinical models, » Lu added. « If we could do that in patients, we could prevent PDAC before tumors start forming, so the vaccines could be either therapeutic or preventative.”
The researchers received a $3.27 million grant over five years from the National Cancer Institute to continue studying how vaccines could help treat pancreatic cancer in lab models.
Lu hopes to work with companies to test the safety of the vaccine in more models before starting trials in humans.
