Why scientists are looking for an ‘anti-Ozempic’ treatment to encourage weight gain
Scientists are seeking an ‘anti-Ozempic’ treatment which will encourage weight gain for cancer patients who struggle with severe loss of appetite.
The new treatment, which has secured financial backing from Cancer Research UK, would essentially provide the opposite effects of weight-loss injections, which have become popular in recent months.
The aim is to eventually find a cure for cachexia, or “wasting away syndrome”, which causes severe loss of appetite and weight loss even in people who are eating properly.
Tobias Janowitz, who watched his mother struggle with cachexia in her final stages of cancer, is looking at biological pathways that might be able to boost appetite and treat the problem which affects four in five advanced cancer patients.
In new comments about his research, Dr Janowitz called it “a profoundly disabling condition”, as reported by The Times.
He added: “It has the side effect that it reduces resilience against treatment. I think it is still underappreciated by oncologists and other doctors that it is a true potential cause of death. And of the people who are aware of it, the majority are too nihilistic about it. They come from this perspective that it’s just the final stage, and it’s a palliative care situation.”
Cachexia is thought to be the main cause of death for around 20 to 30 per cent of cancer patients. Dr Janowitz, a biochemist at Cold Spring Harbour Laboratory in the US, doesn’t believe it needs to be inevitable and hopes a treatment could help people live longer and better lives.
He has teamed up with colleagues to research and seek types of treatment, after receiving funding from Cancer Research UK in 2022 as part of the Cancer Grand Challenge, a global research initiative.
The research comes amid the rising trend of weight-loss jabs, like Ozempic and Mounjaro, with more than 1.5 million people in the UK currently using the medication.
While the drug was designed to treat diabetes, around 4 per cent of UK households are currently using it, as more people hope to tackle obesity by injecting the drug that mimics a hormone, which slows down the body’s digestion, lowers the appetite, and makes people feel full.
The researchers in the US are essentially hoping to do the opposite. Cachexia is most common in people with lung cancer or cancer in the digestive system, and according to Cancer Research UK, up to 80 per cent of people with advanced cancer suffer from some form of the syndrome.
Other symptoms include anaemia, a low red blood cell count, weakness and fatigue, and a loss of fat and muscle mass. It is also common in people with types of heart failure, kidney disease, and AIDS.
Dr Janowitz said: “It is actually a condition independent of the tumour, even though it’s caused by the tumour. If we understand the molecular processes that drive it, we can hope that we can start preventing it from occurring.”
Scientists still aren’t aware of how it develops, Cancer Research UK said, but they think that in people with cancer, the illness causes the immune system to release types of chemicals into the blood that aid the loss of fat and muscle.
