Diabetes Drug May Keep Lung Cancer at Bay

Elizabeth Woodard

September 3^rd, 2010

Time – 3:40 p.m.

U.S. researchers have said that the common drug, Metformin, used to treat diabetes may be a way to keep smokers from developing lung cancer. It has been shown to prevent lung tumor growth in mice, and since the drug is already widely used for humans, researchers feel it may be worth further study.

Dr. Phillip Dennis of the National Cancer Institute, along with his team have been studying Metformin and they performed tests of the drug using mice. The mice had been exposed to NNK (nicotine-derived nitrosamine ketone) which is a cancer-causing agent in tobacco and the protein, mTOR helps tobacco-induced lung tumors to grow. However, Metformin has been shown to switch on an enzyme that blocks this protein. The mice were treated with Metformin either orally or they were injected with the drug. The mice that got the drug orally had 40 to 50 percent fewer tumors, while the mice that were injected had 72 percent fewer tumors. The team now wants to test this drug on smokers to see if the results may be the same and if it will prevent tumors in them. Along with these findings, other studies of the drug have shown that Metformin can reduce diabetics’ risk of pancreatic and breast cancer. Doctors and researchers feel this drug might be useful for cancer prevention and treatment.

I feel this is such critical and important research for researchers to pursue. Smoking and cancer are two of the leading causes of death, not only in the U.S., but globally. Tobacco kills one-third to one-half of those who smoke and according to the World Health Organization, tobacco is the leading PREVENTABLE cause of death globally. It kills more than 5 million people each year from heart disease, cancer and lung disease. So many people today smoke. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates that 20 percent of U.S. adults currently smoke. When I was 6 years old, I lost my grandmother to lung cancer. She smoked for over 20 years. However she stopped long before she ever developed cancer. This research potentially could have saved her life and could save someone else from developing lung tumors and from facing the same fate as her.

http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE68070P20100902