Researchers at Philadelphia-based Penn Medicine have found women who used GLP-1 medications were about 30% less likely to develop breast cancer than women who did not use the drugs.
Here are five notes:
- Researchers analyzed data from 111,646 women ages 45 to 80 with a body mass index of 25 or above who received breast imaging and had a documented outcome in Penn Medicine’s EHR between January 2022 and June 2025.
- Among the study population, 15,264 women (13.7%) had documented GLP-1 prescriptions, while 96,382 (86.3%) had no documented exposure to the medications.
- Researchers also evaluated a matched cohort of 30,528 women to reduce potential bias and confounding factors.
- The study found lower breast cancer incidence across both analyses, including 35.1% lower odds in the full cohort and 30.5% lower odds in the matched cohort.
- Researchers said the findings support further investigation into whether GLP-1 medications could play a role in breast cancer prevention. Penn Medicine is working to establish a multisite clinical trial to assess whether the drugs can reduce breast cancer incidence among women at high risk for the disease.
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