Scientists believe popular drug could end the mysterious outbreak of colon cancer in young people

Scientists believe that blockbuster slimming pills such as Ozempic and Mounjaro could be crucial in turning the tide in the fight against the rising rates of colorectal cancers in young people.

Experts will carry out groundbreaking studies to test the theory that injections could potentially prevent changes in bacteria in the gut that are thought to precede cancer in people at high risk of the disease.

Over the past two decades, cancer rates among the over-50s have risen twice as fast as among the over-75s, stunning scientists and doctors.

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 47.

The increase is mysterious, but experts suspect that ultra-processed foods, pollution and the overuse of antibiotics can cause microscopic cancer-causing changes in the body’s cells.

Now a team of scientists from five countries, including at King’s College London, have been awarded £20 million from charities including Cancer Research UK to fund new studies set to begin early next year. The times reported.

Led by Harvard University professor Andrew Chan, experts in the US will conduct clinical trials in which patients with a history of polyps (growths that can develop into cancer) are given semaglutide drugs such as Ozempic and Mounjaro, to see if this slows down its operation. early-onset tumors.

Previous studies have shown how the fat-melting lampreys can ward off up to 10 types of cancer, including pancreatic, kidney and ovarian.

The funding comes from Cancer Research UK and the Bowelbabe Fund, which was founded by BBC presenter Dame Deborah James before she died of bowel cancer aged 40 in 2022, having been diagnosed at just 35.

American scientists, who conducted an earlier trial published in the journal JAMA network openedsaid their findings demonstrate the drugs’ “potential benefits” in people at higher risk for these diseases.

Researchers don’t yet know exactly why the drugs, which belong to the class of drugs called GLP-1 agonists and work to stop you feeling hungry, might lower a patient’s risk of cancer.

However, some experts believe that they can help stimulate the growth of healthy bacteria in the intestines and prevent the proliferation of bacteria linked to colon cancer.

‘We know that GLP-1, the active ingredient in weight loss medicines, can help reduce intestinal inflammation and ward off harmful bacteria that have been linked to cancer,’ says Professor Sarah Berry, lecturer in nutritional sciences at King’s College London. told MailOnline.

One theory that has been extensively researched is that the rise in young cancers is caused by a simultaneous increase in waist size in Britain.

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 of obese adults has almost doubled, from 14.9 per cent to 28.0 per cent, according to reports. according to figures from the NHS. .

It is known that obesity and higher fat mass carry a higher risk of colorectal cancer and twelve other types of cancer.

Having too much body fat causes the level of growth hormones in the body increases, causing cells to divide more often, Cancer Research UK explains.

Each of these additional divisions represents a new potential opportunity for cancer cells to appear, increasing the chance of developing the disease.

Another factor that increases the risk is that immune cells are attracted to parts of the body where there are many fat cells.

This can then cause a spike in inflammation in these areas, causing cells to divide more quickly, again increasing the risk of disease.

A 2023 study published in JAMA OncologyResearch showed that people who took the slimming shots had a 44 percent lower risk of developing colorectal cancer compared to diabetics treated with insulin.

However, the authors believed that the weight loss effect only partially explained the reduced risk of cancer, as even those who were not obese saw their risk of colon cancer decrease.

Professor Berry will also use the £20 million charity fund to investigate how changes in our diet can affect the gut microbiome.

She has previously discovered that different types of gut bacteria produce different chemicals, some of which can cause changes in the cells in the intestines and cause cancer.

To put this theory to the test, she will set up a trial using identical twin volunteers from Twins UK, a registry of 15,000 twins based at King’s.

One twin from each pair receives nutritional advice with the aim of reducing the risk of colon cancer, for example by eating less red meat and increasing fiber intake. The other twin is told to just eat normally.

Their microbiomes will be monitored and compared for changes in chemicals and bacteria thought to cause cancer.

Professor Berry will also be looking for thousands of volunteers for another experiment that will also test whether dietary changes can prevent changes in the microbiome that have been linked to cancer.

The projects, led by Dr. Yin Cao, a cancer epidemiologist at Washington University in St. Louis, Missouri, and Professor Andrew Chan, a cancer specialist based at Harvard, will involve experts from Britain, the US, India, France and Italy to collaborate.

“In the US, if you compare those born in 1990 to those born in 1950, those born in 1990 have twice the risk of colon cancer and four times the risk of rectal cancer at the same age,” Dr. Cao said. She added that the data for Britain is similar.

The incidence of bowel cancer, which kills 17,000 people every year in Britain, has risen by 22 per cent among under-50s over the past 30 years.

The new collection of studies, called Prospect, will look at data from ten million people around the world, looking for links between their environment, upbringing and lifestyle and their risk of cancer.

Everything from pollution levels, the amount of green spaces near a home and even the rate of caesarean sections 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 pollutants to animals in a laboratory to see if they develop cancer.