Sweden: The widely used diabetes medicine metformin can have protective effects on the heart.Researchers at the University of Gothenburg’s Sahlgrenska Academy have shown in a preliminary study in rats that one of the most common diabetes drugs, metformin, also has a protective effect on the heart.
The study revealed that metformin helps increase pumping capacity, improve energy balance, reduce the accumulation of fat, and limits the loss of heart cells through programmed cell death. The results were compared with animals treated with another diabetes drug, which proved to have no positive effects on the heart.
"The animals in our study were treated with metformin for a whole year, so the effect seems to persist," says Jِrgen Isgaard, the researcher at the Sahlgrenska Academy who led the Swedish research group involved in the study.(Online News PK)
