Cheap diabetes drug can help heart

Scottish scientists have found a cheap and common diabetes medicine can “reverse” a crippling kind of heart disease and save thousands suffering from the condition from death.

The drug, metformin, is routinely used for the treatment of type two diabetes.

Researchers at the University of Dundee have discovered it can reverse thickening of the left ventricle – the heart’s main pumping chamber. The drug also helped to bring down high blood pressure and reduce bodyweight in patients who had a heart attack.

The results mean new hope for patients with high blood pressure-induced heart damage and “aortic stenosis”, which causes heart failure.

The British Heart Foundation praised the breakthrough as giving “real hope” of cutting deaths.

The Dundee team will presented their discovery today at a conference of the British Cardiovascular Society in Manchester. The first study involved treating people with coronary heart disease with metformin or placebo over a period of 12 months to see how the drug affected the heart and circulatory system.

The dangerous thickening of the left ventricle was reduced by twice as much in those taking metformin compared to the placebo. Patients who took metformin also had reduced blood pressure and lost an average of almost half a stone, compared to no weight loss in the placebo group.