BUSINESS INSIDER – Metformin is the most widely prescribed diabetes drug in the world.
Scientists believe the drug has some colon-cancer prevention benefits.
New research provides hints about its use as a supplemental colon cancer treatment.
A cheap, widely prescribed diabetes drug that some doctors have called a “wonder drug” may hold promise as a colon-cancer-fighting supplement.
Scientists who presented at the American Association for Cancer Research conference in Chicago last week are studying how metformin — the most popular diabetes medication worldwide — interacts with tough-to-treat colon cancer cells. Their research is still early and ongoing.
“I always like to ask the question: Are there medications or agents that we already know, that are already used, that we have safety/toxicity profiles for, that we can then repurpose for something else?”
“Metformin seems like it could have a really interesting supplemental approach to therapy,” Holli Loomans-Kropp, a gastrointestinal cancer prevention researcher at The Ohio State University, who is leading the ongoing study, told Business Insider. “We’re opening up some doors to what this could do.”
Previous research found that people taking metformin for diabetes have lower colon cancer rates, suggesting the drug may be doing something protective to help prevent cancer from developing.
This new study is one of the first to look at whether metformin could actually fight colon cancer cells once the disease develops.
Based on what Loomans-Kropp and her team have seen so far in cell-culture dishes, metformin could become a helpful “supplement” to certain cancer treatment regimens in the future. It wouldn’t be potent enough to treat cancer on its own, but could be used alongside other treatments.
Loomans-Kropp is especially excited about the drug’s potential in treating a common type of colon cancer caused by a mutated KRAS gene, which tends to be very tough to treat …
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