BATON ROUGE - GLP-1 medications are increasingly being prescribed for health conditions beyond Type 2 diabetes and weight loss, and one Baton Rouge physician sees major promise in their potential to help prevent cancer.

Hundreds of prescriptions for GLP-1 medications are sorted, packed and shipped out of the Ochsner Health pharmacy in Baton Rouge every week.

"We probably ship about 70 a day," Bradley Reed, pharmacy manager at Ochsner Health, said.

Space once used as an infusion center for chemotherapy patients is now handling GLP-1 receptor agonists- drugs increasingly tied to promising new research in cancer prevention.

Dr. J. Brooks, Vice Chair of Hematology and Oncology at the Ochsner MD Anderson Cancer Center, has spent nearly four decades treating oncology patients.

He anticipates a major shift in cancer prevention driven by the weight-loss medication.

"We know that there are certain cancers associated with excess weight: breast cancer in women, prostate cancer in men, uterine cancer in women, and kidney cancer in both men and women," Brooks said. "So we will probably see these drugs help reduce the risk of those cancers going forward."

Brooks drew a parallel to public health milestones in smoking cessation and lung cancer prevention.

"About 30% of all cancer is related to tobacco. Another 20% is related to excess weight," Brooks said. "This is big, and I think this will help our population reduce their risk of cancer going forward, just like we've done a tremendous job in reducing tobacco exposure."

He recalled how drastically public health norms can change over time.

"When I first came to this city, people smoked in hospital rooms. It's hard to believe that, but that happened," Brooks said. "And today, you can see how much we've cut the rates of tobacco from about half the population to about 15%."

More research is needed to determine whether GLP-1s directly prevent cancer or if the protective benefits stem strictly from weight reduction. For now, emerging studies point to a strong association between the medications and a lower risk of obesity-related cancers.