Recent research has discovered that a widely used diabetes medication could lessen the severe side effects associated with prostate cancer treatments.
Hormone therapy is a typical and effective method for treating prostate cancer, involving the use of pills that reduce testosterone levels. However, this treatment can lead to weight gain and raise the chances of heart disease and type 2 diabetes.
Metformin, a drug for type 2 diabetes, has been found to cut weight gain in half and also lower blood sugar and cholesterol levels when taken alongside cancer treatment.
Researchers studied over 1,800 men to understand how metformin affects the hormonal side effects of therapy.
Over seven years, metformin, one of the most commonly prescribed diabetes medications, has shown considerable improvements in how the body processes sugars and fats. It enhances insulin effectiveness and lowers blood sugar, decreasing the body’s tendency to convert excess glucose into fat.
Metformin helps to control the amount of glucose (sugar) in the blood. It decreases the amount of glucose absorbed from food and the amount of glucose made by the liver. It also increases the body’s response to insulin, a natural substance that controls the amount of glucose in the blood.
Prostate cancer is the number one cancer in Nigerian men and constitutes 11 percent of all male cancers with hospital incidence of 127/100,000 cases and national prostate cancer risk of 2 percent of patients.
Every year, so many men are diagnosed with prostate cancer, which results in several thousand deaths annually.
A study by Prof Dominic Osegbe suggested that prostate cancer incidence rate in Nigerians may be approximately 13-fold greater than it is commonly believed.
It showed that the risk, pool and death rate in the Nigerian population may compare favourably to those of black men in the US.
The study strongly suggested that Nigeria is a high risk zone for prostate cancer.
Hormone therapy plays a significant role in treatment; while it cannot cure the disease, it can extend patients’ lives or slow tumor growth, allowing time for surgery or radiation therapy.
Professor Noel Clarke, a consultant urologist at The Christie NHS Foundation Trust in Manchester, labelled the research as a “landmark trial.”
He noted that while hormone therapies are effective for prostate cancer, they come with unwanted side effects that can harm patients’ health and quality of life.
Although the affordable diabetes medication is widely available, doctors’ prescription is required to enable more patients to benefit.
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