Metformin drug may prevent onset of cancer
Metformin sensitizes body tissues to insulin action, and causes reductions in blood sugar and lipid profile, weight loss and, in women with PCOS, may regulate their cycles and enhance the chances of fertility.
As an insulin-sensitizer, metformin can regulate, at least in part, the flux in oxygen radicals generated by insulin secretion to support excessive intake of nutrients, particularly those with a high Glycemic Index. Oxygen radicals have long been incriminated in aging, worsening insulin resistance, coronary artery disease and cancer.
Reviews of large groups of patients taking metformin for type 2 diabetes have suggested that the drug may prevent the onset of cancer.
Now, Ben Sahra and colleagues (1) in France have showed that metformin added to the culture of prostate cancer cells as well as a similar collection of cells grafted under the skin of mice reduced both by 50%. It did not appear to do so through its classic signaling pathway, but by putting the brakes on crucial molecules that control the cell moving from one phase of growth and division to another.
Serendipity can sometimes grow into the essence of genius!
So we ask this question of the Health Authorities:
Why has prescribing slow release metformin been discouraged and even prohibited in preference to regular metformin, knowing that many taking the regular tablet will suffer so much from stomach upsets which are a side-effect that they have to stop taking it? Many young women on metformin have been told either to put up with the prescribed tablet or to buy the slow-release version themselves.
We suspect this is because slow release is more expensive!
We would like to hear from you on this issue.
1) Ben Sahra I et al, The antidiabetic drug metformin exerts an antitumoral effect in vitro and in vivo through a decrease in cyclin D1 level, Oncogene (advance online publication 21 January 2008 doi:10.1038/onc.1211024)