Insulin and Metformin are the most widely used forms of all diabetes medications. That is why it is important, particularly if you are a diabetic, to take time to learn about them. Both medications are used to lower blood glucose (sugar) levels in your blood stream, but how?
Insulin is the hormone needed for sugar in the blood to be transferred into the cells and be converted into energy. In most people insulin is produced naturally, but type-1 diabetics do not produce adamant amounts, and so they must inject the hormone medically. In type-2 diabetes, there is usually enough insulin being produced, but the cells ignore it and build up a tolerance to it. Type-2 diabetics sometimes also use insulin along with their oral diabetes medications.
Metformin is normally the first of all diabetes medications used in diabetes treatment. It is particularly helpful with overweight and obese type 2 diabetics. This medication cannot be used if a person’s kidney does not function normally, and it is typically not used in gestational diabetes either. Metformin belongs to the biguanide class of diabetes medications. This class works by suppressing the production of glucose in the liver and decreasing insulin resistance.
Studies Related to Diabetes Medications
The drugs insulin and metformin are so helpful as diabetes medications and as drugs for other condition that they are still continually studied. Recently researchers found that patients showing heart attack symptoms, who were given a mixture of glucose, insulin, and potassium, were half as likely to go into cardiac arrest or die than those who did not receive the dose.This study also showed that the treatment did not stop the heart attack from occurring, but it was showed that the mixture reduced the severity of the damage to the heart tissue. The testing showed that this a much more effective manner in treating the first signs of a heart attack then waiting for a diagnoses to be confirmed at the hospital (Huffingtonpost.com, 2012).
Recent studies on metformin are yielding good results as well. According to ScienceDaily.com, metformin may be effective in thwarting liver cancer. The study was recently published in Cancer Prevention Research, which is a journal of the American Association for Cancer Research. The leader of the study, Geoffrey Girnun, Ph.D. stated that he and his team were surprised to find that there were few studies on the drug’s effects on liver cancer, especially since the effects of the drug take place in the liver. Upon studying the diabetes medications effects on mice with chemically induced liver tumors, the team found that the mice which were given metformin displayed minimal tumor activity, while the control mice had significant tumor growth. According to the article, clinical trials may soon be underway.
