The Role and Mechanism of Metformin in Inflammatory Diseases

Abstract

Metformin is a classical drug used to treat type 2 diabetes. With the development of research on metformin, it has been found that metformin also has several advantages aside from its hypoglycemic effect, such as anti-inflammatory, anti-aging, anti-cancer, improving intestinal flora, and other effects. The prevention of inflammation is critical because chronic inflammation is associated with numerous diseases of considerable public health. Therefore, there has been growing interest in the role of metformin in treating various inflammatory conditions. However, the precise anti-inflammatory mechanisms of metformin were inconsistent in the reported studies. Thus, this review aims to summarize various currently known possible mechanisms of metformin involved in inflammatory diseases and provide references for the clinical application of metformin.

Keywords:

• metformin
• AMPK
• inflammation
• mechanisms

Disclosure

The authors report no conflicts of interest related to this work.

Additional information

Funding

This study was supported by the Program of National Natural Science Foundation of China(Nos. 81960352, 82160376, and 81760342); Youth Science Foundation of Jiangxi Province of China (No. 20192BAB215029); the Key Research and Development Plan of the Science and Technology Department of Jiangxi Province of China (No. 20171ACG70004); the Natural Science Foundation of Jiangxi Province (No. 20212ACB214002); Jiangxi Provincial Department of Science and Technology, Gan Po Talents 555 project leader talent training program (No. 1210013001).