A Diabetes Drug for Ovarian Cancer?

Ovarian cancer is one of the toughest cancers women face. Despite initially responding to therapy most women see their cancer return. Currently there are limited options for inhibiting the recurrence of ovarian cancer. However, there is hope, and physicians and researchers are exploring new options.

Surprisingly, one of the most promising candidates isn’t a new, high-tech drug—it’s an old one. Metformin, a medicine that’s been around for decades to treat type 2 diabetes, might also help women with ovarian cancer.

Metformin is one of the most prescribed medications worldwide. Doctors use it to lower blood sugar in people with diabetes. But over time, researchers noticed something interesting: diabetics taking metformin not only managed their blood sugar but also seemed to have lower cancer rates and better survival if they were diagnosed with cancer.

That raised an important question—could this simple drug also be useful for ovarian cancer?

Metformin doesn’t work like chemotherapy, which directly attacks rapidly dividing cancer cells. Instead, it changes the “environment” cancer needs to thrive by:

• Starving the tumor: Metformin disrupts the mitochondria, which are like power plants for cells. Cancer cells can’t grow as easily when their energy supply is stressed.

  
  

• Flipping the “off” switch: It activates an enzyme called AMPK, which slows down cancer growth and sometimes triggers cancer cell death.

• Cutting off fuel: The drug lowers the hormone insulin and IGF-1 (insulin like growth hormone), that tumors often use to grow.

  
  

• Blocking cancer pathways: Metformin interferes with systems (like mTOR and c-MYC) that ovarian tumors use to spread and resist treatment.

  
  

• Boosting chemo: Lab tests show metformin can make ovarian cancer cells more sensitive to common chemo drugs like cisplatin and paclitaxel.

  
  

• Targeting cancer stem cells: These are the difficult to kill cancer cells that survive treatment and are responsible for cancer recurrence.

  
  

To date lab research has been promising. Ovarian cancer cells exposed to metformin tend to grow slower, die off more easily, and respond better to chemotherapy.

In patients, the results are also hopeful. Some studies found that women with ovarian cancer who were also taking metformin lived longer and stayed cancer-free for longer periods. For example, one study showed diabetics on metformin had a median survival of 138 months, compared to 42 months for non-diabetics- that three times longer!

Metformin is safe, inexpensive, and widely available. While it’s not yet a proven treatment for ovarian cancer, the early evidence is strong enough that researchers and progressive physicians are using metformin more and more as part of a comprehensive treatment and recurrence prevention plan. However, using metformin, or any re-purposed medication should only be done under the guidance of an experienced integrative physician.