That said, age alone does not tell the full story. Pancreatic cancer cases and deaths have been rising over the past three decades, and this trend is particularly noticeable among younger adults, especially women, suggesting the disease may be affecting different age groups than before.
Race is also a factor that researchers continue to investigate. Black Americans have a higher incidence of pancreatic cancer than people of Asian, Hispanic, or Caucasian descent. Ashkenazi Jews also have a higher incidence, possibly because the BRCA2 gene mutation is more common in that group. The reasons for these racial disparities are not fully clear, but may be partly explained by higher rates of other risk factors, including diabetes, smoking, and excess body weight.
GLP-1 Weight-Loss Medications: What the Evidence Actually Shows
Few topics in oncology have generated more public concern in recent years than the potential link between popular weight-loss drugs such as Ozempic, Wegovy, and Mounjaro, and pancreatic cancer. The concern arose early in the drugs’ widespread use. The current evidence is more reassuring, though not entirely resolved.
Early in the widespread use of GLP-1 drugs, some studies raised concerns about a possible link to thyroid or pancreatic cancer; these were mostly rodent studies. More recent and more rigorous research has not supported a causal relationship. Large meta-analyses have found no increased risk of gastrointestinal cancers, including colorectal, pancreatic, liver, or gallbladder cancers, among people taking GLP-1 receptor agonists.
A December 2025 analysis published in the Annals of Internal Medicine and reported by NBC News, which reviewed 48 randomized controlled trials involving over 94,000 patients, found that GLP-1 drugs had little or no effect on the risk of developing four types of obesity-related cancers: breast, kidney, thyroid, and pancreatic cancer.
UCI Health bariatric medicine expert Dr. Kishore M. Gadde is cautiously optimistic about these findings, noting that more time is still needed to fully study the drugs. The main limitation of current evidence is follow-up duration. Because the GLP-1 receptor agonist class is relatively new, researchers don’t have decades of data to draw from. Physicians, meanwhile, continue to prescribe these drugs carefully, with attention to individual patient history.
