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Doctors commonly prescribe metformin to help people with type 2 diabetes lower their blood sugar levels. The drug increases insulin sensitivity through its effects on glucose metabolism. However, although there is clear evidence of metformin's effectiveness, scientists do not fully understand how it interacts with cells and tissues at the molecular level. Now, a new Cell Reports study has mapped metformin activity in the liver and yielded some surprising results. Using cell cultures and mice, the researchers identified numerous biochemical switches for turning various cell and molecular processes on and off. The findings shed light not only on metformin's mechanism of glucose control, but also on a surprising number of other reactions and pathways. The researchers suggest, for instance, that the new findings could help explain recent revelations about metformin's apparent ability to promote healthy aging. Large-scale clinical trials of metformin are already under way to test the drug's effectiveness in extending life span and health span that is, the proportion of a person's life span that they spend in good health. However, the underlying biochemistry has been unclear. Teams from three research centers worked on the study: the Salk Institute for Biological Studies, the Scripps Research Institute both in La Jolla, CA and Weill Cornell Medical College in New York. "These results, says Reuben J. Shaw, one of the study's corresponding authors, "provide us with new avenues to explore in order to understand how metformin works as a diabetes drug, along with its health-span-extending effects.These are pathways that neither we, nor anyone else, would have imagined, he adds. Shaw is a professor of molecular and cell biology at the Salk Institute and director of the Salk Cancer Center.
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A new pilot study concludes that at-home urine tests could make prostate cancer diagnoses shorter, simpler, and possibly even more accurate. Prostate cancer is common, affecting nearly half of males over 50. However, it tends to develop slowly, and in many cases, health professionals do not consider it clinically significant. In other words, it is not likely to shorten the male's life. This poses a real problem for medical professionals, as it becomes difficult to know who to treat and when. On the one hand, it is important not to begin treatment if someone does not need it, but on the other hand, they must make sure that someone who is likely to develop aggressive prostate cancer receives the best care. Currently, the two most common diagnostic tools are digital rectal exams and blood tests for prostate-specific antigen (PSA). Although PSA is useful, there are issues. The National Cancer Institute provide an example. Only about 25% of men who have a prostate biopsy due to an elevated PSA level actually are found to have prostate cancer when a biopsy is done. For this reason and others, researchers are investigating other ways of testing for prostate cancer, and some are looking to urine. The University of East Anglia researchers designed this new study to test the efficacy of at-home urine collection. Now they know that this methodology works, they plan to use it more widely to investigate aggressive prostate cancer in the near future. The study authors believe that this protocol might also be useful when "screening for other urinary cancers, such as bladder and kidney." Because the process is simple and cost effective, it will speed up clinical trials studying prostate cancer and make it easier to recruit a greater numbers of participants.

(Credits: www.medicalnewstoday.com)