Metformin against infertility
The drug for diabetes mellitus metformin helped in the treatment of diseases of the reproductive system
Natalia Safronova, "Scientific Russia"
Scientists have analyzed how metformin, a drug for diabetes mellitus, acts on the reproductive system. They found out that it promotes the restoration of the ovaries and testes in patients with hormonal problems and infertility. In the future, this will help to improve the effectiveness of the treatment of diseases of the reproductive system. The article by Alexander O. Shpakov Improvement Effect of Metformin on Female and Male Reproduction in Endocrine Pathologies and Its Mechanisms is published in the journal Pharmaceuticals. The research is supported by a grant from the Presidential Program of the Russian Science Foundation (RNF).
Metformin is a well–studied drug for type 2 diabetes mellitus and metabolic syndrome. These diseases are associated with hormonal and metabolic disorders. Today, 5% of the population in Russia suffers from type 2 diabetes, and every fifth Russian suffers from metabolic syndrome.
In a healthy person, insulin helps cells capture glucose, the main source of energy. In diabetes and metabolic syndrome, tissues do not recognize insulin well and do not pass glucose into cells. Elevated blood sugar worsens the functioning of blood vessels, leads to kidney failure, causes inflammation and, as it turned out, disrupts the reproductive system. Metformin increases the sensitivity of tissues to insulin, reduces the level of "harmful" cholesterol and promotes weight loss. Scientists from The I.M. Sechenov Institute of Evolutionary Physiology and Biochemistry of the Russian Academy of Sciences (St. Petersburg) conducted a study in which the effect of this drug on the reproductive system of men and women was analyzed. Based on this, they prepared a large-scale review in which they summarized the research of leading foreign scientists and summarized their own results.
The researchers also found that metformin increases the effectiveness of the IVF procedure, which is used for fertilization in infertility. It has also been shown that metformin can help in the treatment of polycystic ovary syndrome, which affects 9-18% of women of reproductive age and 30% of women with diabetes and metabolic syndrome. This disease leads to constant pelvic pain and bleeding, the development of breast cancer and the inner lining of the uterus, accompanied by an increase in testosterone levels. A clinical study has shown that metformin in most women with polycystic ovary syndrome increases the frequency of ovulation almost twice, and this increases the probability of getting pregnant from 24% to 46%. At the same time, scientists note that in order to increase the positive effect of metformin, it must be taken with drugs that improve ovarian function, and the best results were obtained when combining metformin with clomiphene citrate.
In addition, clinical studies have shown that metformin has a positive effect on sperm production in men with diabetes mellitus or metabolic syndrome, in which the number of germ cells is greatly reduced due to a lack of testosterone. After conducting tests on rats with diabetes, scientists for the first time found that metformin increases the response of the testes to gonadotropins — hormones that are responsible for the normal functioning of the reproductive system. Thus, it enhances the production of testosterone and stimulates the production of sperm. As scientists have found out, taking this drug improves the reproductive function in men, because not only the number of spermatozoa increases, but also their fertilizing ability.
"Our study opens up new directions for the use of metformin as a pharmacological drug that improves reproductive functions in women and men with endocrine pathology. There are also prospects for the use of metformin to increase the effectiveness of assisted reproductive technologies," comments Alexander Shpakov, Doctor of Biological Sciences, Head of the RNF grant project, Head of the Laboratory of Molecular Endocrinology and Neurochemistry of the I.M. Sechenov Institute of Evolutionary Physiology and Biochemistry of the Russian Academy of Sciences.
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