An initial lab study has shown metformin, a common diabetes drug, can repair nerve damage caused by MS; Researchers plan to conduct human trial next year.
Recently, results from animal studies showed a common diabetes drug can repair nerve damage caused by MS.
Researchers at Cambridge University worked with a team in Australia to administer the diabetes drug metformin to rats for three months before they had an injection that stripped myelin off some of the nerves in the brain. The rats continued to receive the metformin for three more weeks afterwards. Animals who were treated with metformin had a near complete recovery of the damaged myelin compared to those that went without the treatment.
Encouraged by these initial findings, researchers plan to conduct a human trial on the diabetes drug in people living with MS next year. It is important to view the results with caution, since the drug has not yet been tested in humans.
“The possibility that metformin, a widely used drug for diabetes, could help MS patients recover function is addressing the major unmet need in MS,” said Dr. Timothy Vollmer, Medical Director of the Rocky Mountain MS Center and Co-Director of the Rocky Mountain MS Center at University of Colorado. “Metformin is one of several drugs already in the pharmacy that we hope to move forward with as neuroprotective and neuroreparative therapies to add on to the monoclonal antibody therapies that address the autoimmune attack on the nervous system, but do not facilitate repair directly.”