Shocking New GLP-1 Side Effect: Can GLP-1s Reduce The Risk of Cancer? - With Dr. William Li

Shawn Stevenson (0:00)

You are now listening to The Model Health Show with Shawn Stevenson. For more, visit themodelhealthshow.com.

Welcome to The Model Health Show. Today, you're going to learn some cutting edge new science connecting GLP-1s to cancer prevention, to reducing the recurrence of cancer, and much more.

But what about the potential side effects of GLP-1s? We're gonna dive into the data on that as well, and I'm telling you, everybody needs to know this stuff. Now, because of the exceedingly fast shift in our culture with GLP-1 drugs, this conversation warrants some caveats. And this is not especially for me. An advocacy for these drugs, or against them.

This episode today is about providing access to the latest, again, cutting-edge information that has emerged now that we have accumulated years of data on their use. Plus, you're going to discover the surprising relationship between cancer cells and fat cells, help to fuel or starve them both. It's the process of angiogenesis. And today, you get to learn about all of this from the world's leading expert on this subject, Dr. William Li. Dr. William Li is an internationally renowned physician, scientist, and author of the New York Times bestsellers, Eat to Beat Disease and Eat to Beat Your Diet. His groundbreaking research has led to the development of more than 40 new medical treatments that impact care for more than 70 diseases, including diabetes, blindness, heart disease, and obesity. Dr. Li is a president and medical director of the Angiogenesis Foundation, and he's leading global initiatives on food as medicine. Let's dive into this conversation with the incredible Dr. William Li. This episode is going to be out of this world. Literally. We've got some incredible new insights. We've got the one and only Dr. William Li here with us. How are you doing today?

William Li (2:24)

I'm doing great. Thanks for having me back on. Always a pleasure.

Shawn Stevenson (2:27)

Of course, of course. You've got some cutting edge new research regarding a relationship between GLP-1 and cancer.

Please talk about that.

William Li (2:39)

Well, I think like the rest of the world, I've been swept into the interest of GLP-1 because everybody, 30 million people actually are taking it.

Some for diabetes, many for weight loss, and it's actually become a vanity drug of choice and kind of a runaway success. And because my background is in research, I'm a physician in internal medicine.

I care about the responsible use of pharmaceuticals, right? And because I've been involved with drug development through the Androgenesis Foundation for 30 some years, I know a lot about how drugs sometimes have side effects that we don't want. But occasionally, we have side effects that we do want. And GLP-1 happens to be one of those drugs that are generating. You do hear about the negative side effects, but the positive effects are now coming out like artillery fire, particularly in a cancer research meeting. And I'm just telling you, I'm a person who works on the thin air of science and discovery of how the human body works. But I have to say in the last 10 years, I haven't heard anything quite as startling and as amazing as what GLP-1 can do potentially for cancer patients. But it tells us a lot about how important this peptide hormone that our body makes a little puff of after we eat foods, the profound effects on maintaining health and preventing disease.

Shawn Stevenson (4:26)

Let's dig in because this is one of those subjects. Obviously, it's really on the tip of a lot of people's tongues. A lot of people are interested in it. As you mentioned, being a vanity drug that's just exploded in popularity, but also having these really viable treatments for people who are struggling with diabetes, with obesity.

And what I love about your work, and we've been connected for many, many years, is that you're looking at first and foremost, how do we do this through our lifestyle? How do we do this with food? And we've talked about this before in encouraging the production of this incredible compound that we make. But now we see that these kind of therapeutic amounts of it can potentially reduce the risk of cancer or treat cancers. Give us some of the details.

William Li (5:15)

All the above. Before we dive into cancer though, I think it would be helpful for anybody watching or listening to have a little bit of grounding on where this whole GLP thing came from. Because the history of the biology actually helps us give us context. So most people don't realize this, but because there's a lot out there about peptides and hormones, but GLP-1 is a hormone. And it was discovered, the human version of the hormone was discovered in 1986 in Boston, at Massachusetts General Hospital. So a bunch of researchers that go, Oh, look, we found this hormone called GLP-1 tied to metabolism.