Glucophage effective as diabetes prevention

A study sponsored by the US National Institutes of Health, whichcompared diet and exercise to treatment with Bristol-Myers Squibb's Glucophage (metformin) in patients with impaired glucose tolerance, which often leads to type 2 diabetes, has demonstrated that Glucophage is effective not only as a treatment for type 2 diabetes, but also in the prevention of the disease.

The trial recruited people who were at high risk of developing type 2 diabetes due to family history, excess body weight and impaired glucose tolerance, and randomly assigned them to one of three treatment groups: intensive lifestyle changes with the aim of reducing weight by 7% through a low-fat diet and 150 minutes' exercise per week; treatment with 850mg of Glucophage twice a day; or placebo.

Study results showed that the Glucophage arm had a 31% reduced risk of developing diabetes, with 22% of that group developing the disease during the follow-up period of three years, compared to 14% of the diet and exercise group and 29% of the placebo group. David Nathan of Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston, USA, said that "this is the first study showing medication can prevent type 2 diabetes." However, he also noted that although Glucophage is "effective in men and women and in all ethnic groups, it was relatively ineffective in the older volunteers and in those who were less overweight."