Metformin Provides Heart Benefits in Prediabetes

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Metformin Provides Heart Benefits in Prediabetes

The oral diabetes drug metformin may help reverse a potentially dangerous heart condition in people with prediabetes, according to new research in the European Heart Journal.

For the MET-REMODEL Trial, researchers randomly assigned 68 participants with coronary artery disease and insulin resistance and/or prediabetes to take either 2,000 milligrams of metformin daily or placebo (inactive treatment). Compared to those taking placebo, patients taking metformin experienced reductions in left ventricular hypertrophy (LVH, a potentially life-threatening “enlargement and thickening of the walls of heart’s main pumping chamber”), along with decreases in blood pressure and body weight.

According to researcher Nieca Goldberg, MD, LVH can result from untreated high blood pressure. Only about 20% of people in the United States with high blood pressure have the condition well controlled, she added.

Additional research into the possible heart-protective benefits of metformin is needed from larger trials, the researchers note.

Want to learn more about metformin? Read “What to Know About Metformin,” “Diabetes Medicine: Metformin,” and “Metformin: The Unauthorized Biography.”

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