If they promise you the gold and the moor, as the saying goes, it is normal that you feel curious. Metformin decreases your appetite, it may help you lose weight and a thousand and one other benefits.
What is special about this medicine? And where does it come from? What is it for? What are its contraindications?
What is metformin?
Metformin decreases appetite, increases cellular glucose uptake, decreases the synthesis of fatty acids and triglycerides, and increases beta-oxidation of fats. It is an antidiabetic medicine that lowers high blood sugar levels without causing hypoglycemia.
And the result is extremely good. Metformin began to be used because it controls the concentration of glucose in the blood, also called glycemia, without letting it drop too much. Also, due to its mechanisms, metformin can be used in cases where insulin or other diabetes treatments cannot. Today we can find many metformin products, for example, the popular one, Janumet 50/850.
But, in addition, what is interesting is that metformin promotes another series of benefits due to its way of acting in the body. Specifically, it decreases appetite, increases cellular glucose uptake, increases insulin signal transduction, decreases the synthesis of fatty acids and triglycerides, and increases beta-oxidation of fats.
This means an increase in the conversion of fat into lean tissue without affecting the pancreas and helping to prevent diabetes. But this is where you need to start thinking about it more carefully: all drugs have a recommended dose and administration for good reason.
What is metformin used for?
Currently, the use of metformin is commonly prescribed in three specific medical cases. The first, and for what it was developed from the beginning, is to counteract some adverse effects of diabetes and the insulin resistance typical of type 2 diabetes mellitus.
In these, numerous pieces of evidence suggest that metformin can help in coronary problems and risk metabolic development. It is also often used in the treatment of polycystic ovary syndrome. It can even be used in the control of obese patients with hyperglycemia, as it helps control cardiovascular complications, or in patients with non-alcoholic steatohepatitis, due to its relationship with insulin production.
