Research on metformin and Human longevity It is scarce, but that has not prevented some people from experiencing with it.
A few years ago, Marc Provisioniero, a film producer who approached half of his fifty, began to contemplate the next decades of his life. He pointed to a high -level longevity clinic for a few hundred dollars a month and began to control his blood test, to eat better and to improve his dream. He wanted to stay active as he aged: play tennis, surf, hiking and spend time with his little daughter.
But during the annual medical examination of Provisioniero at the Longevity Clinic, your doctor, Darshan Shah, made a serious warning. Despite his healthy habits, Provisioniero’s blood sugar level approached prediabetic levels. His family history increased their risk of developing diabetesthat can subtract years from the life expectancy of a person. When a stricter diet and an exercise regime did not work, Shah prescribed metformin.
Scientists have known for decades that metformin reduces Blood sugar. It is approved by the Food and Medicines Administration to treat type 2 diabetes and is also usually prescribed to lose weight and polycystic ovary syndrome. But some doctors, including Provisioniero, They bet that this same drug can prevent a series of chronic diseases before even developingto help people healthy to live more and better.
“The hope is that this leads to a greater number of healthy years,” said provision, who lives in Malibu, California. After a year taking metformin, he said he feels less swollen, with more energy and with greater control of his weight and blood sugar.
Research on the impact of metformin in human life It is scarce. The existing investigations, carried out largely in mice, are “scattered” and show variable effects according to sex and the species of animals, said Rafael de Cabo, senior researcher of the National Institute on Aging, who has studied metformin in mice for more than two decades. Studies in humans, which have focused mainly on diabetic patients, yield contradictory results on the benefits of metformin for healthy people, he said.
Even so, The interest in the anti -aging potential of metformin remains elevatedsince scientists have found preliminary but promising evidence that they could also control or delay other conditions, such as cardiovascular diseases, cancer and dementia. “Metformin may be pointing to the fundamental cause” of several other diseases whose risks increase with age, potentially because it regulates hormones, repairs tissues and relieves inflammation of the immune system, said De Cabo.
The promise of a single drug that could “address everything” makes it an especially attractive objective for people eager to avoid fatal diseases related to age, S. Jay Olshansky, Professor of Public Health at the University of Illinois Chicago.
The tests of the ability of metformin to help humans to live longer are “weak, but they are not absolutely negative in a definitive way,” added Richard Miller, a professor of pathology at the University of Mischigan who studies aging.
Waiting for the great study in humans
Scientists continue to investigate how metformin works at the molecular level. It seems to reduce cell damage protecting the chromosomes of degradation and investing the chemical labels of the DNA associated with aging, among other functions, said Nir Barzilai, director of the Institute for Research on Aging of the Albert Einstein Faculty of Medicine.
Originally derived from the French lilac, the drug was formulated for the first time about 100 years ago to regulate the blood sugar of animals. Doctors began to offer it as a treatment of diabetes to humans in the 1950s, because it inhibits natural production and absorption of glucose by the body, De Cabo said.
In the early 2000s, the researchers began to observe that The diabetic and prediabetic mice that metformin received more time than the healthy mice that did not take the drugwhich suggests that it does more than simply treating blood sugar, said De Cabo. For example, a 2013 study directed by him discovered that a low dose of metformin prolonged the lives of healthy male mice around five percent (on the other hand, a higher dose shortened his life). It seemed to have the same effect as the caloric restriction, that the aging field considers among the most promising possibilities to extend life.
Some other studies have been encouraging. One of last year suggested that metformin slowed the aging of the brain cells of the male monkeys up to six years. Another observational study very cited in humans, published in 2014, discovered that people with type 2 diabetes who took metformin had a lower risk of mortality than people without diabetes who did not take it.
But other investigations paint a different panorama. An analysis of 2022, which aimed to replicate the 2014 study, discovered that people with diabetes who took metformin did not have a risk of mortality less than the healthiest patients who did not take the drug. There is also evidence that the benefit of metformin for people without diabetes can be ephemeral, reducing their risk of mortality only for a few years before returning to normal.
Years ago, an important national essay has been delayed to examine the effect of metformin on healthy elderly people, which could finally establish the efficacy of the drug to avoid chronic diseases and mortality. Called essay on the Metformin aging (or TAME, for its acronym in English)and headed by Barzilai, he intends to compare the incidence of cardiovascular problems, dementia, cancer and death in people who take metformin with whom they do not take it. But due to the budget limitations and the interruptions, the investigation has not seriously begun and they are likely to pass years before the preliminary data will be published, Barzilai said.
Make a ‘jump of faith’
There are no reliable data on how many people use metformin strictly for longevity purposes. Some influences in the fight against aging promote metformin as part of their regime, and the doctors interviewed for this article said that patients (even those who are not at risk of chronic diseases) ask them more and more to prescribe the drug.
Although insurance does not cover the drugs used only for longevity, metformin is relatively cheap: patients who do not use it for chronic diseases often pay from their pocket between 10 and 30 dollars per month.
Metformin experts and users claim that drug risks are usually minimal; Among the usual side effects are diarrhea and difficulty developing muscle, which seem to send once patients stop taking it. (Some longevity enthusiasts, who were the first defenders of metformin, have been abandoned since then, in part because of the fear of inhibiting muscle growth, which, they said, would weigh more than the possible benefits for longevity).
However, more serious side effects may occur. Cabo warned that the drug could compromise the function of the kidney in patients with kidney disease, if it is not taken under the close supervision of a doctor.
Patients as Provisioniero believe that potential benefits are worth the risks. Now that it takes metformin, he said that he goes to the gym more frequently to counteract any difficulty in developing muscle, although so far he has not experienced any problem.
Peter Bernard, 59, a retired technology sales executive who lives in Haverford, Pennsylvania, said he has taken metformin for about seven years. Although he has never had trouble maintaining under the blood sugar level, he thought that metformin could help him delay the biological collapse that occurs with age. For Bernard, there is not “much inconvenience” in taking a 500 milligram pill twice a day, especially because it has never noticed negative side effects. Although he has not observed any impressive benefit of metformin, Bernard said that his blood test and weight are systematically found in the “healthy” range, and that “the only way to find out if it does not work is to stop taking it.”
Show that a drug helps live longer could have beenShah said; Provisioniero and other users are making a “jump of faith” in which metformin will have long -term benefits.
Although it is not the most powerful drug, “it can be good for people” who struggle to maintain their glycemia or weight within healthy guidelines, Miller said, he added that it is “demonstrably good” to slow down the progression of prediabetes to diabetes. But to whom he affirms that metformin delays the aging of those who “have neither a trace, nor the slightest indication of prediabetes, would have to tell him: ‘Show it.”
It is also difficult to determine if the benefits are attributable only to metformin, said Miller. Some patients who take it for longevity simultaneously take other drugs and supplements that supposedly delay aging. For example, Bernard said he also takes testosterone, milk and magnesium serum protein.
And it could simply be that the greatest benefit of metformin is that it triggers a change in behavior, I recognized provision. As it makes a meticulous follow -up of its glucose and undergoes semiannual laboratory tests to detect inflammations, its dose of metformin is a “daily reminder” that eating healthy and exercising can reduce your blood sugar levels, expanding your life expectancy. With changes in lifestyle, he said, “I have to collaborate and behave.”