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Diabetes drug may reduce cancer risk

01/20/12

A drug used to treat diabetes called metformin might reduce the risk of developing cancer, according to researchers from McGill University and the University of Montreal.

A paper recently published in the journal Cancer Prevention Research explained that exposure to metformin reduces cellular mutation rate and accumulation of DNA damage, ultimately reducing the risk of cancer.

Researchers from Scotland found an unexpectedly low rate of cancer among patients taking the diabetes drug in 2005, and follow-up studies after the discovery showed as much as a 50 percent reduction in risk.

"It is remarkable that metformin, an inexpensive, off-patent, safe and widely used drug, has several biological actions that may result in reduced cancer risk – these latest findings suggest that it reduces mutation rate in somatic cells, providing an additional mechanism by which it could prevent cancer," explained Dr. Michael Pollak, professor in McGill's Departments of Medicine and Oncology.

According to a report for the President's Cancer Panel, roughly 41 percent of Americans will be diagnosed with cancer during their lifetime and about 21 percent will die from cancer, which makes securing life insurance a necessity for all Americans.

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