Metformin is the most commonly prescribed medication in the world for type 2 diabetes and with good reason. Metformin costs $4 a month and it is a miraculous small molecule that reduces heart attacks by about 40% compared with achieving the same glucose level by other means. Most professionals think of metformin as reducing insulin resistance. That does not explain these tremendous benefits.
New science provides a mechanism of action for metformin that explains these important effects. Patients with type 2 diabetes don’t die of a high sugar. They die of heart attacks, strokes, and other arterial diseases. ADMA (asymmetric dimethyarginine) is elevated in all risk factors for arterial disease and contributes to their development. High ADMA levels increase oxidant production. ADMA switches on genes that should be quiet and ADMA levels correlate strongly with levels of insulin resistance. Look at the molecular structure of ADMA and metformin in the diagram above. You can easily see that the left end of the molecules are identical. More importantly, metformin blocks ADMA effects in the membranes of intact cells.
This effect probably occurs in lysosome membranes. Metformin switches off mTOR and switches on AMPK by interfering with the nutrient sensing mechanism that coordinates growth with food supply in kids. ADMA levels correlate with growth rates in children and chronic disease development in middle-aged and older adults. A fetus lacking the enzyme that produces most ADMA dies within days of conception. ADMA is a product of epigenetic processes that switch genes on. That is important in kids and deadly in older adults. ADMA also has a structure like the amino acid arginine which activates mTOR via a transceptor in the lysosomal membrane. A transceptor has properties of a receptor and a transporter. This transceptor is the likely site of the ADMA/metformin antagonism.
ADMA is an essential regulator of fetal and childhood development and causes disease in older adults. Metformin blocks that effect to protect every cell and every organ in the body. The effect of lowering the sugar is more like a side effect than the desired effect. Keep taking metformin even if your sugar becomes normal through diet and exercise. It will still protect you from heart attack and stroke. It will help prolong your healthy life. Now it all makes sense. Don’t you agree? Please help me spread the word on these important facts about metformin.
What are your thoughts on how metformin compares to berberine for these processes? Thanks
Thank you!