Word: metformin
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 2000-2009
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...take medicine if they can avoid it," says Greene. And physicians, including internist Dr. Christine Laine, who is the editor of the Annals of Internal Medicine, point out that the direct and indirect costs associated with taking a drug - even one as widely prescribed as the generic diabetes medication metformin - can serve as a barrier for many patients, especially among disadvantaged populations and those without health insurance...
Compared with patients who never developed diabetes, patients who had the disease but took insulin along with one additional medication to control blood sugar (typically metformin or glyburide) had 80% fewer brain-clogging amyloid plaques in their brain. Build up of these protein plaques, which are one of the hallmarks of Alzheimer's disease, can interfere with normal communication between nerve cells and cause deficits in memory and cognition. "The group on combination therapy had a very, very low load of neuritic plaques," Beeri says. "Their brains looked almost like normal people." The medications did not, however, do much...
...protein expression of these Alzheimer's patients might be close to that of normal people who don't have Alzheimer's at all," she says. Beeri stresses that it's far too early to recommend that patients showing early signs of Alzheimer's start to take insulin with metformin or glyburide. But, she says "I am hoping that this sheds light on a potentially new mechanism for insulin's role in controlling the disease and lead us to new therapies...
...That suggests that a well-timed intervention in the inflammatory process might reverse some of the effects of diabetes. Some of the drugs that are already used to treat the disorder, like metformin, may work because they also dampen the inflammation response. In addition, preliminary research suggests that high CRP levels may indicate a greater risk of diabetes. But it's too early to say whether reducing CRP levels will actually keep diabetes...
...halted a full year early "because the results were just so remarkable," says Dr. David Nathan, director of the Diabetes Center at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston, who chaired the study. During the three years of the study, nearly 30% of the placebo group developed diabetes. For the metformin group the figure was 22%. The subjects who exercised moderately and lost weight had the lowest incidence of all--just 14%. (The first two groups were given diet and exercise information but did not lose as much weight as the last group.) The study is continuing to see if lifestyle changes...