Metformin can help Beat Prostate Cancer

Metformin, an inexpensive diabetes drug, can slow down the growth of cancerous cells aiding prostate cancer treatment, a new study has claimed.  Due to slow cellular growth rate, the cancerous tumour shrinks.

The findings of the research heighten the possibilities that prostate cancer in men can be cured by metoformin, a readily available diabetic drug. Unlike other expensive cancer medications, one tablet of metformin costs only two pennies, thus affordable.

After the drug successfully averted the prostate cancer cell growth in laboratory experiments, the doctors at the Princess Margaret Hospital in Toronto, Canada, carried out the metformin test on 22 men, who were diagnosed with prostate cancer and underwent prostate removal surgery.

The metformin 500 mg were administered to the patients for three times a day for 42 days before the operation. During these six weeks, doctors noted the rate at which cancerous cells multiplied. It was found that it leads to stunted growth rate of cancerous tumour. The research’s results were presented at the recent annual meeting of American Association for Cancer held in Chicago.

This study supported the research conducted in 2009, which showed that diabetic men, who takes metformin, are 44 per cent less likely to develop prostate cancer.