20-cm “miracle medicine” is studied as a supplement to stop colon cancer and seems promising

• Metformin is the most widely prescribed diabetes medicine in the world.

• Scientists have noticed that the people who accept it can also gain some benefits to prevent colon cancer.

• Early studies give tips on how it can be used to help treat colon cancer.

A cheap, widely prescribed medicine for diabetes, which some doctors have called the “miracle medicine”, may promise as a supplement to stop colon cancer.

Scientists who presented themselves at the American Cancer Research Association last week study how metformin-most popular diabetes medicine worldwide-has difficult to treat colon cancer cells. Their research is still early and continuing.

“Metformin seems to have a really interesting additional approach to therapy,” Business Insider Holli Loomans-Kropp told the current study. “We open some doors for what it can do.”

Previous studies have emphasized how people who take metformin for diabetes have a lower levels of colon cancer, suggesting that the drug can do something protective to prevent cancer from developing. This new study is one of the first to look at whether metformin can actually fight against colon cancer cells after the disease develops.

Based on what Loomans-Kropp and her team have seen so far in cell culture dishes, metformin seems to be a useful “supplement” for certain cancer treatment regimens in the future. It would not be powerful enough to treat cancer alone, but it can be used with other treatments.

She is particularly excited by what she can do for a common type of colon cancer with a mutated Krasian gene, which is very difficult to treat. Its work, if successful, will require additional positive results in animals, and then in humans to become a recipe that oncologists can reliably use in the clinic.

A drug that changes the way the body uses energy

One of the great benefits of Loomans-Kropp is to study metformin for the treatment of colon cancer is practical-this is a medicine that is already widely available and affordable.

“I always like to ask the question: Are there any medicines or agents we already know that have already been used that we have safety/toxicity profiles that we can then adjust for something else?”

Metformin has been studied and used by millions of patients worldwide. And this is a cheap-uncomplicated, generic medicine that costs about 10 to 20 cents per pill.

It is sometimes called a “miracle medicine” by doctors for the beneficial effects that may have on patients who take it beyond blood sugar control. Scientists have studied it for the health of the heart, the prevention of cancer and dementia.

Metformin works for diabetes because it changes the way the body processes and produces sugar. Some scientists suspect that it may promise to improve aging for such a reason: as it regulates how the body uses energy and promotes more self -eating (autophagy), similar to exercise or starvation. Perhaps metformin could also suppress the ways in which colon cancer finds energy for growth and development.

“If metformin may be used to redirect or change the way the cell uses energy, which ultimately changes the way it is divided and how it is spread, it can be a mechanism of operation,” said Loomans-Krop.

The same energy displacement mechanism excites the researchers of longevity from Metformin as a tool for preventing disease.

Dr. Nir Barzilai, a leading longevity researcher who suspects that metformin can be useful for healthy aging, says that he believes that metformin can be a “appropriate” option for preventing cancer. As for the fight against cancer, he agrees with Loomans-Kropp that more examination is needed.

“Let the science lead,” he told Business Insider in an email.

Loomans-Kropp hopes that if these initial cancer cell results are successful, it can begin to test metformin as a treatment of colon cancer of animals within one year.

Read the original Business Insider article