Diabetes drug 'benefits life expectancy'

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A new study has found that taking a drug prescribed for those suffering with type 2 diabetes could help us live longer.

New research has suggested that a diabetes drug could help us all live longer.

Metformin, which is used to treat type 2 diabetes by controlling glucose levels, has also been found to help stave of cardiovascular disease and cancer even in those who are not diabetic.

Findings were published in the journal Diabetes, Obesity and Metabolism and scientists studied more than 180,000 people.

They found a "small but statistically significant improvement in survival" in those that were taking metformin compared with those given an older anti-diabetic drug and also a group without diabetes.

Cardiff University's School of Medicine's Professor Craig Currie, who was lead author of the new study, commented that further research on healthy people taking the drug was merited particularly as it had minor side effects. Metformin is also inexpensive, costing a little over ten pence a day for the highest prescribed dose.

"Surprisingly, the findings indicate that this cheap and widely prescribed diabetic drug may have beneficial effects not only on patients with diabetes but also for people without," Professor Currie said.

"Metformin has been shown to have anti-cancer and anti-cardiovascular disease benefits. It can also reduce pre-diabetics' chances of developing the disease by a third."

He added that those who suffer with type 2 diabetes would see their health decline regardless of what drug they took, stating that averagely around eight years are lost from one's life expectancy. Keeping lean with moderate exercise is the best way to avoid diabetes he advised.

The data used in the study come from the UK Clinical Practice Research Datalink, from which researchers identified 78,241 patients prescribed metformin as a first-line therapy and 12,222 patients prescribed a sulphonylurea as a first-line therapy.

These were then matched against a patient that was not suffering with diabetes, using criterias such as age, gender, smoking status and life expectancy compared.

The findings demonstrated that average survival time was 15 per cent lower in healthy people compared with diabetics on metformin, and 38 per cent lower in diabetic patients on older drugs.

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