Obesity treatment may restore cancer killing cells

MAYNOOTH UNIVERSITY’S  Kathleen Lonsdale Institute for Human Health Research has published ground-breaking research into the benefits of the popular obesity treatment drug, GLP-1. Previous research has found that people with obesity are at a greater risk of developing cancer.

The new research found that the popular, and gold-standard pharmacological treatment for obesity, Glucagon-like peptide (GLP-1) analogues, can actually restore the ‘Natural Killer (NK) cell function in the body including its ability to kill cancerous cells.

The study, published in the Obesity Society’s Research Journal here, also shows that the restored cancer-killing effect of the NK cells is independent of the GLP-1’s main weight loss function so it appears the treatment is directly kick-starting the NK cells’ engine.