Metformin for ovarian cancer - anyone know anything about this?

Hi Everybody

Came acros this this morning:

supanet.com/cheap-diabetes-...

So rare to see anything promising re ovarian cancer treatment that I got quite excited! Anyone heard any more about this?

Monique

[Hidden]

Hi Monique... had heard about this finding. I'm not sure whether it's a preventative drug for ovarian cancer or whether it holds the disease at bay. It'd be good to know how it works though wouldn't it.

[sue1212]

Hi Monique

I and one other person have asked the Metformin question before:

ovacome.healthunlocked.com/...

ovacome.healthunlocked.com/...

Metformin appears to be more accessible in the America to improve the odds to delay/prevent occurrence. NHS GPs here and oncologists are no doubt able to prescribe it for non diabetics or if you don't have PCOS. Of course it doesn't work for everyone as you can read from the threads and can have side affects but if it improves your odds and you are in general good health despite the OC diagnosis ...probably food for thought. Personally, I have been thinking of taking it. You can see from these links that diabetics taking metformin have nearly twice the 5 year survival rates of non diabetics and "may" even help kill cancer stem cells

ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/221...

foxnews.com/health/2012/06/...

Everyone is of course unique and what may be right for one person would certainly be wrong for another. Everything has a risk. Metformin is just one more thing to consider on top of everything else we have to deal with!

Take Care

Sue

[sue1212]

Mistake in my post above. I meant to say NHS GPs are no doubt UNABLE to prescribe it for non diabetics"!

[charlie12]

Hi there

I am a healthcare professional in my day job and have looked into this on a number of occasions.

My understanding is that the glucose lowering and weight loss effect of metformin is likely to be a cause or one of the causes of the suggested effect on caancer recurrence. I also understand that we can in theory replicate the effects of metformin by improving our diets and loosing weight ( but we all know how hard this is !!) . Attempting to do this with increased exercise will also help our bones, mood , sleep, cholesterol and accoarding to MacMillan this week should lower our personal individual risk of a recurrence.

Metformin does not have a product license for this indication , so hasn't been robustly tested for efficacy and safety in people with OVCA. Therefore doctors are understandably reluctant to prescribe it for unlicensed indications. It's not an easy drug to take, the tablets are very big and it can make you feel really sick.

Love to all

Charlie xxx

[Hidden]

Thank you all for the info. I was sad to see in one of the previous discussions on this that the low cost of the drug meant that there was no incentive to push forward with the research. I did wonder when I saw that the tablets cost 2p each! I have also seen that Metformin was derived from a plant called galega officinalis or goat's rue and that that can be bought as a supplement or a herbal tea. Might be worth a try!

Moniquex

[Meryl]

Hi all

Ive been taking Metformin for 10 years and on 4th line chemo having been diagnosed just over three years . I've no way of knowing if the OC would have been more aggressive had I not been on Metformin or whether it's made no difference at all, it would be interesting to know. Meryl XXXX

[cathysal]

I was on Metformin for about 7 years and am just about to start 3rd line chemo in the space of two years so it did not prevent or slow down OC for me. I was taken off it because I now have an ileostomy (stoma) and metformin can cause diahorrea which is the last thing you want with an ileostomy! Also my blood sugar levels were good and steady. They are rising now though but it's not been suggested that I start taking Metformin again.

Cathy xx

[Hidden]

It clearly doesn't work then for a lot of people. I think I saw that one study showed that for around 40% of people it slowed progression. That seems quite high.

Monique

[sue1212]

Hi Monique. My Dad had advanced bowel cancer 4 years ago ...and is still cancer free with no recurrence Maybe he is just one of the lucky ones .....but he is diabetic and he does take Metformin.

Take Care

Sue

[Anne-2]

Hi

My husband is a diabetic and takes Metformin daily. Recently however he was given a slightly different tablet and gained weight, so obviously as a weight checker this would be no good. It sounds as if it needs a proper study to see if it would benefit those with OC.

Love

Anne

[TinaWright]

Wow, how interesting, there is always continues findings all the time and that has to be a relief for the generations to come.

However, I don`t think I would want to take Metformin unless I was diabetic, if it lowers the blood sugar in individuals who have normal levels of blood sugar, it could be dangerous, couldn`t it?

Or if not dangerous, it could give you terrible side effects of low blood sugar. I have suffered from episodes when my blood sugar drops suddenly and trust me it isn`t for the faint of heart.

Lower blood sugar can cause faintling and even worse coma. I`m not saying this would do, more to the point could it.

Then we go back to my earlier blog "Cancer loves Sugar"???

Well, if this is true then it would certainly explain why Metformin works, wouldn`t it?

To be honest I think this could lead us back to a diet of low suagr in take.

I`d just like to add my in -laws who are diabetic and who do take Metformain think this means they can continue to scoff sugar, I don`t think its supose to work quite like that, maybe if they controlled their eating habit they would be healthier.

Why rely on a drug to do what our daily in take of food can do for us?

Now, that is food for thought.

But my food for thought right now is chocalate, chocalate and more chocalate how do we get around the sugar cravings? More on that another time eh!!!!

Love from Tina xx

[Hidden]

Hi again

A recent post on the forum Inspire quoted an article which said this about Metformin:-

A 2011 Dutch study that followed 11,140 diabetics, who were encouraged to keep blood sugar under tight control, did not find that lower sugars lowered cancer incidence. [6]

In Japan a study is testing whether metformin use will prevent colon cancer. They are testing whether metformin will prevent progression of dysplastic aberrant crypt foci (ACF) into colon cancer. In a pilot study of 26 non-diabetic patients with biopsy-proven ACF, a moderate dose of metformin (250 mg daily) for 1 month significantly decreased the number of ACF and the cellular proliferation index. [7]

While keeping blood sugar low is useful in cancer treatment, metformin appears to have a bigger impact than would be caused by simply lowering blood sugar.

The reasons why metformin does this get a bit thick. Let me just quote Dr Neubauer’s article briefly as she summarizes these details particularly well: “Metformin acts on several antiproliferative pathways. While clinical trials obviously show that metformin increases insulin sensitivity, biopsies taken during cancer trials reveal that metformin decreases cancer cell proliferation (measured via Ki67 and cellular proliferation index) and induces apoptosis (measured via p53). [11,12]

It looks as though more studies are planned and should be quite interesting!

Monique

[shen]

wow... how u ladies find out this information, ... u are so brilliant.. i need computer classes i am going back to see my oncologist next week... i was going to ask abt drug trials (see my question abt dug trials) so this is def one i am going to mention... does anyone know if there are any drug trials available for this ? xx