Researchers are likely to have uncovered a novel mechanism behind the ability of the common diabetes drug metformin to inhibit the progression of pancreatic cancer.<\/p>\n
Diabetic patients taking metformin have a reduced risk of developing pancreatic cancer.<\/p>\n
Among patients who develop the tumour, those taking the drug may have a reduced risk of death, the study revealed.<\/p>\n
Metformin \u2014 a commonly used generic medication for type 2 diabetes \u2014 decreases the inflammation and fibrosis characteristic of the most common form of pancreatic cancer, the researchers said.<\/p>\n
This beneficial effect may be most prevalent in overweight and obese patients, the findings indicated.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe found that metformin alleviates desmoplasia \u2014 an accumulation of dense connective tissue and tumour-associated immune cells that is a hallmark of pancreatic cancer,\u201d said lead author Dai Fukumura \u2014 associate professor of radiation oncology at Harvard Medical School in Massachusetts, US.<\/p>\n
The study focused on pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma \u2014 the most common form of pancreatic cancer \u2014 which also accounts for almost 40,000 cancer deaths in the US ever year. Half of those diagnosed with this form of pancreatic cancer are overweight or obese, and up to 80 per cent have type 2 diabetes or are insulin resistant, said the researchers.<\/p>\n
The researchers first found that levels of hyaluronan \u2014 a component of the extracellular matrix \u2014 were 30 per cent lower in tumour samples from overweight or obese patients who were taking metformin to treat diabetes than in those who did not take the drug.<\/p>\n
In obese mouse models, the researchers found that metformin treatment reduced levels of tumour-associated macrophages by 60 per cent and reduced expression of genes involved in remodeling the extracellular matrix of tumour tissue.<\/p>\n
\u201cUnderstanding the mechanism behind metformin\u2019s effects on pancreatic and other cancers may help us identify biomarkers \u2014 such as patient body weight and increased tumour fibrosis \u2014 that can identify the patients for whom metformin treatment would be most beneficial,\u201d the authors noted in a study published in the journal PLOS One.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Researchers are likely to have uncovered a novel mechanism behind the ability of the common diabetes drug metformin to inhibit the progression of pancreatic cancer. Diabetic patients taking metformin have a reduced risk of developing pancreatic cancer. Among patients who develop the tumour, those taking the drug may have a reduced risk of death, the study revealed. Metformin — a commonly used generic medication for type 2 diabetes — decreases the inflammation and fibrosis characteristic of the most common form of pancreatic cancer, the researchers said. This beneficial effect may<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":1784,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[6],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.banglanewsus.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1782"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.banglanewsus.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.banglanewsus.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.banglanewsus.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.banglanewsus.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1782"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.banglanewsus.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1782\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1785,"href":"https:\/\/www.banglanewsus.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1782\/revisions\/1785"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.banglanewsus.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1784"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.banglanewsus.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1782"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.banglanewsus.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1782"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.banglanewsus.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1782"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}