Metformin Also Helps Pancreatic Cancer Patients

April 12th, 2012
by Michael O'Leary

Dr. Donghui Li, of MD Anderson Cancer
Center

A new study shows that people with diabetes and pancreatic cancer may live longer if they take metformin. In fact, those prescribed metformin had a 32 percent lower risk for death compared to those who didn’t take metformin.

Whether taking metformin might prevent people with diabetes from developing pancreatic cancer, however, is unknown.
This is mostly because the relationship between diabetes and pancreatic cancer is unclear. While about 80 percent of those diagnosed with pancreatic cancer also have diabetes, researchers have been unable to determine if the diabetes causes the cancer, or whether the cancer causes the diabetes.

A 2003 review of multiple studies of the link between the two found that there is no simple answer to which is the cause and which is the result, and that neither theory excludes the possibility that pancreatic cancer is both caused by diabetes and causes diabetes. (Published site)