Taking metformin was linked to a lower risk of death among people with diabetes hospitalized with pneumonia, according to a new study published in the journal Clinical Infectious Diseases.
Metformin is widely considered the first-line drug for type 2 diabetes, and this oral drug has been a mainstay of diabetes treatment around the world for decades. Even if you need to take additional treatments to lower your blood glucose at some point, your doctor may recommend sticking with metformin and adding a second drug. Not only is metformin effective at lowering blood glucose levels, relatively free of dangerous side effects, and inexpensive, it may also have a range of other health benefits — starting with helping you control your body weight. Taking metformin may reduce the risk for neurodegenerative diseases, reduce the need for joint replacement, and help with cellular function in your body on the most basic level. It may also reduce the risk for certain cancers in men, and there is evidence that it might be effective as a treatment for atrial fibrillation. Unfortunately, a huge proportion of people with newly diagnosed type 2 diabetes stop taking metformin — possibly largely because of unpleasant digestive side effects that are usually temporary in people who start taking the drug.
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For the latest study, researchers used data from the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs to look at the effect of taking metformin on mortality among veterans ages 65 and older with a history of diabetes who were hospitalized for pneumonia. Over a 10-year period, 34,759 hospitalized patients met the study’s inclusion criteria, and 20.3% of these patients were prescribed metformin prior to their hospitalization.
Lower death risk among metformin users hospitalized for pneumonia
Looking at the raw numbers, the researchers found that the 30-day mortality rate among participants who took metformin was 9.6%, while among those who didn’t take metformin it was 13.9%. The 90-day mortality rate for metformin users was 15.8%, compared with 23.0% for those who didn’t take the drug. But these raw numbers don’t account for some important differences between metformin users and nonusers. For example, people who don’t take metformin may be taking insulin instead because they have more advanced diabetes — which could be a separate factor in their risk of dying in the wake of their hospitalization for pneumonia.
To account for the differences between participants who did and didn’t take metformin, the researchers performed a second analysis in which they matched 6,899 metformin users with the same number of nonusers based on a number of characteristics such as age, diabetes severity, and overall health status. Once the playing field was leveled in this way, metformin users still came out ahead — they were 14% less likely to die over a 30-day period and 15% less likely to die over a 90-day period.
“Prior receipt of metformin was associated with significantly lower mortality after adjusting for potential confounders,” the researchers concluded. “Additional research is needed to examine the safety and potential benefits of metformin use in patients with respiratory infections,” they added — suggesting that the drug could potentially be used in a hospital setting to help lower blood glucose levels and improve other outcomes in patients with diabetes and pneumonia.
Want to learn more about metformin? Read “What to Know About Metformin,” “Diabetes Medicine: Metformin,” and “Metformin: The Unauthorized Biography.”
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