An interesting new development in the pipeline, but may be 10 years off.
Researchers identify diabetes drug metformin as potential atrial fibrillation treatment:
The study, published in Cell Reports Medicine, built on ongoing collaborative Cleveland Clinic research to support further investigation into metformin as a drug repurposing candidate. Researchers used advanced computation and genetic sequencing to determine that metformin’s targets overlap significantly with genes dysregulated in atrial fibrillation.
The analysis found metformin targeted 30 genes associated with atrial fibrillation, with direct effects on gene expression for eight.
“It’s not that we’ve found a new drug target where it takes 20 years to test this in individuals,” said Jessica Castrillon Lal, the study’s first author and a fifth-year graduate student in the Cleveland Clinic Molecular Medicine program.
Eight other candidate drugs surfaced in the analysis, but researchers were able to identify metformin as the most promising candidate through testing and reviewing outcomes in large stores of patient data.
“We can cut off 10+ years in the drug development pipeline. We already have the information there. We just have to test it in a very computationally efficient way, such as artificial intelligence technology,”
Cryoablation or Drug Therapy for initial Treatment of atrial fibrillation.
Vitamin D and AF
AF and amiodaran treatment, ablations, cardioversions
