Dr. Wy, why is my cardiologist telling me I should take metformin to stop aging? Shouldn’t everyone be taking it?

Ask Dr. Wy…

Richard Wyderski, MD, FACP

Dr. Wy, why is my cardiologist telling me I should take metformin to stop aging? Shouldn’t everyone be taking it?

Metformin is a medication that’s been around for decades and is the first line treatment recommended by the America Diabetes Association to lower blood sugars in people with type 2 diabetes. It reduces the amount of glucose (the form of sugar used in our bodies for fuel) manufactured by our livers, improves the body’s sensitivity to insulin and reduces the amount of carbs we absorb from our GI tract. Better yet, it doesn’t cause weight gain! What’s not to like?

In fact, in the early 2000’s academic physicians noticed that their diabetic patients on metformin tended to love longer than those not taking and developed cancer less often. That led to animal studies primarily in mice, that looked at its effects compared to placebo. Mice that were given a moderate dose had reduced inflammation, multiple improvements of different body metabolic processes, and ultimately improved their health and lifespan. It’s no wonder that these exciting findings would lead to metformin being tested in people.

And so the Targeting Aging with Metformin (TAME) trial was planned in 2013 and approved by the FDA in 2015. It was to be conducted by 14 different academic medical centers across the country in over 3000 volunteers to answer the question about whether people who are otherwise in good health should take it as a preventive treatment. So what’s the holdup? Funding. Though the National Institute of Health approved several million dollars of support, it was only a fraction of the actual cost of the 6-year study, and the pharmaceutical industry didn’t have an interest in it.

The American Federation for Aging Research (AFAR) is trying to raise philanthropic funds so that the study can be done to find out. Wouldn’t it be amazing if all of us could live longer and healthier lives for less that 10¢ per day? Maybe AFAR should start a Go Fund Me site. In the meantime, we DO know that eating a healthy diet rich inf fruits, vegetables, whole grains and seafood, exercising moderately for 30 minutes at least 5 days weekly, and getting 6-8 hours of high-quality sleep are all cornerstones to successful aging.

 

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