Quick overview of what you’ll learn from this blog post:
- The importance of inflammation in aging
- Brief intro to Metformin
- How Metformin could be anti-inflammatory
- Other reasons to consider Metformin
- How we can help with Metformin
The importance of inflammation in aging
A message from your future self: lower your inflammation.
If you’ve never heard the term ‘inflammaging’ before, you can probably guess it refers to inflammation speeding up aging. But you might be surprised to learn just how much of an effect chronic inflammation can have on our bodies. Not only can chronic inflammation speed up the rate at which our cells and organs age, it’s also linked to increased cancer, heart disease, diabetes and more. For this reason, chronic inflammation is often referred to as a 10th hallmark of aging, in addition to the famous 9 hallmarks of aging.
With this in mind, reducing chronic inflammation is something we should all be aiming for. On top of the obvious things like having plenty of fibre in your diet (so lots of veggies and fruit), regular exercise and avoiding refined sugars, it looks like the common diabetes drug Metformin could also come in handy for lowering chronic inflammation.
Brief intro to Metformin
If you’ve read our other posts on Metformin, you’ll know Metformin is a very popular, very well-tolerated medication that’s prescribed all around the world for the treatment and prevention of diabetes.
First synthesized from galegine in Dublin in 1922, Metformin has been used to treat diabetes patients since the 1950s, and it’s now the fourth-most commonly prescribed medication in the United States. Thanks to its glucose-lowering properties, Metformin is also frequently given to women with polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS) and to help lower the risk of weight gain in people who take antipsychotics.
While the drug has been around for a long time now, doctors and scientists are still learning about all the ways Metformin drives beneficial changes throughout the body – and the more that’s learned, the better Metformin seems to look from an anti-aging and all-round pro-health perspective.
How Metformin could be anti-inflammatory
While the mechanisms of action behind Metformin’s apparent anti-inflammatory effects aren’t yet perfectly understood, research has found Metformin to lower several key inflammation markers in the blood. Here are few key take outs from studies over the last decade:
A 2015 study concluded “Metformin suppresses inflammatory response by inhibition of nuclear factor κB via AMP-activated protein kinase (AMPK)-dependent and independent pathways.” In other words, Metformin can ‘turn down’ key inflammatory pathways, helping to avoid the negative consequences.
A 2016 study further concluded “The anti-inflammatory properties of metformin are exerted irrespective of diabetes mellitus status.” In short, the researchers found that Metformin lowered the participants’ inflammation, whether they were diabetic or not.
A 2012 study “Patients treated with metformin had lower levels of hsCRP expression of TNF-α and TLR 2/4, than their counterparts not receiving the drug.” Simply put, CRP (C-reactive protein) and TNF-α (Tumour Necrosis Factor alpha) are two classic inflammation markers, and in this study, the researchers found Metformin to significantly lower both.
How we can help with inflammation
At AgelessRx, our physicians are very knowledgeable about the latest research about interventions that could help with inflammation. If you’re interested in a free online evaluation with a licensed medical professional who can speak about various benefits of Metformin, click here.