A cheap and largely prescribed diabetes medication that some doctors have called a “medication perfectly” can be promising as an supplement for colon cancer.
Scientists who presented themselves at the American Association for Cancer Research Conference in Chicago last week study how metformin – drugs against the most popular diabetes in the world – interact with the cancer cells of the resistant colon. Their research is still early and in progress.
“Metformin seems to have a really interesting additional approach to therapy,” Business Business Insider, a researcher for the prevention of gastrointestinal cancer at Ohio State University, told Business Insider, who directs the current study. “We open doors to what it could do.”
Previous research Underlined how people taking Metformin for diabetes have lower colon cancer rates, suggesting that the drug can do something protective to help prevent the development of cancer. This new study is one of the first to examine whether metformin can actually retaliate against the cancer cells of the colon once the disease is developing.
Based on what Loomans-Kropp and his team have so far seen in cell culture boxes, metformin seems to become a “supplement” useful for certain cancer treatment patterns in the future. It would not be powerful enough to treat cancer by itself, but could be used alongside other treatments.
She is particularly enthusiastic about what she could do for a common type of colon cancer with a transferred Kras gene, which tends to be very difficult to treat. His work, in case of success, would require additional positive results in animals, then in people to become a prescription that oncologists can use reliably at the clinic.
A drug that changes how the body uses energy
Metformin stimulates a key cell cleaning process called autophagy. Exercise can also induce autophagy, but in a slightly different way. Half-point / Images Getty
One of the great advantages that Loomans -Kropp sees in studying metformin for the treatment of colon cancer is practical – it is a drug already largely accessible and affordable.
“I always like to ask the question: are there drugs or agents that we already know, which are already used, for which we have security / toxicity profiles, for which we can then reuse for something else?”
Metformin has been studied and used by millions of patients worldwide. And it's inexpensive – a generic medication outside the parent which costs around 10 to 20 cents per pill.
It is sometimes called “amazed drug“By doctors for the beneficial effects he may have on patients who take it, beyond the control of blood sugar. Scientists have studied him for heart health, cancer prevention and dementia.
Metformin works for diabetes because it changes the way the body treats and produces sugar. Some scientists suspect that this can be promising to improve aging for a similar reason: because it regulates the way the body uses energy and encourages more self-consumption (autophagy), a bit like exercise or fasting. Perhaps Metformin could also inhibit the ways in which colon cancer finds energy to develop and develop.
“If metformin can perhaps be used to redirect or modify how the cell uses energy, which then changes the way it is divided and how it proliferates, it could be a mechanism to exploit,” said Loomans-Kropp.
It is this same energy change mechanism that has longevity researchers excited by metformin as a tool for prevention of diseases.
Dr. Nir Barzilai, one of the main longevity researchers who suspect metformin can be beneficial for healthy aging, says that it thinks that metformin can be an “appropriate” option for cancer prevention. Regarding the fight against cancer, it is suitable with Lodomans-Kropp that more study is necessary.
“Leave science direct,” he told Business Insider in an email.
Loomans-Kropp hopes that if these initial results of cancer cells succeed, it can begin to test metformin as the treatment of colon cancer on animals in a year.
