Metformin and digestive disorders
Abstract
Digestive disorders (diarrhoea, vomiting) represent the most common metformin side-effects (around 30%) with this first-line drug treatment for type 2 diabetes. In healthy individuals, metformin affects glucose, vitamin B12 and the digestive uptake of bile salts. In the colon, it acts locally by modifying glucose cell metabolism. Different pathophysiological hypotheses have been proposed to explain the metformin-induced diarrhoea and vomiting, which can sometimes cause the patient to stop an effective treatment. These theories include stimulation of intestinal secretion of serotonin, changes in incretin and glucose metabolism, and bile-salt malabsorption. However, none of these hypotheses can be considered an adequate pathophysiological explanation of metformin digestive side-effects. In addition, there is a lack of experimental data to explain these highly patient-dependent adverse effects.
Read the paper
Related studies
- Metformin as an adjuvant in breast cancer treatment
- Metformin Lysosomal Targeting: A Novel Aspect to Be Investigated for Metformin Repurposing in Neurodegenerative Diseases?
- Aberrant HSF1 signaling activation underlies metformin amelioration of myocardial infarction in mice
- Metformin induces ZFP36 by mTORC1 inhibition in cervical cancer-derived cell lines
- Protein Interaction Network for Identifying Vascular Response of Metformin (Oral Antidiabetic)
- Preventing Long COVID With Metformin
Go deeper in Evidence Hub
Evidence Hub adds a study data sheet (design, sample size, evidence level, key numbers), an AI summary and a chat grounded in the paper's text.