So a patient just sent me an article is a great article very interesting it's on metformin the
question is does metformin work for prolonging life there have been some questions about it
Rhonda Patrick and some others have raised potential toxicity for the mitochondria
but that's sort of the point it's pushing that mitochondria so it responds and improves
its function we'll talk about what that is in just a minute and a spoiler is or mises
but there's a new article that just came out in Nature Metabolism
and it acknowledged that yes metformin does appear to prolong lifespan and a lot of the
lifespan lab models like nematodes you know worms some other things it also said it may prolong it
in human cells can't prove it yet in humans but now it's saying look it damages it in older
lab models nematodes worms and it damages the mitochondria in human cells now how could this be
again we'll talk about that in a few minutes here's two real key questions what is all this
got to do with the Easter Islands that that's the picture we all recognize it we'll cover that
a little bit later too so here's the study Nature Metabolism Loss of Metabolic Plasticity Underlying
Metformin Toxicity in Aged Caenorhabditis elegans and if you know what that is again I think it's
another type of nematode or a worm that they study longevity metformin as most of us know
works in a lot of different places it can impact the mitochondria pushes them a little bit it
impacts AMPK it impacts tumor growth it impacts the gut biome it stops gluconeogenesis so those
of us that take it it's not really clear which of these activities is actually helping now again how
could it cause damage in older age and improved function in younger age have you ever heard of the
term hormesis it's a theoretical phenomenon where there's a dose-response relationship just a little
bit of something pushes the organism gives it just a little bit of stress enough stress so that
when it responds to that stress it's stronger so that may actually be a possibility here the
example of hormesis given in the definition is uh low-level radiation some scientists
believe that very low levels of radiation are actually good for the cells they cause some DNA
stimulation so what's going on here well again we're not sure but again it's another brick in
the wall against saying maybe metformin for aging alone is not helpful now let's start talking for
a second about Easter Island it just so happens that they continued to do more research on this
and they found out that rapamycin sirolimus neutralizes that negative effect of metformin
on older organisms older human cells and older lab models rapamycin is used on stent coatings it's
used in prevention of organ transplant rejection and here's the thing it stimulates autophagy
if you don't know I've got several videos on the topic it's David Sabatini very very well known for
this issue rapamycin autophagy and what that has to do with health speaking of connecting dots here
here's where Easter Island comes in rapamycin or sirolimus was discovered on the island of Rapa Nui
and that's the little discovery monument right there the island of Rapa Nui is known by folks
in the west as Easter Island so again rapamycin is a black market youth pill does it work well I've
had a lot of people ask me for it but I don't use black market drugs so don't ask me for it
what's the bottom line am I stopping metformin no I'm not stopping metformin this is a very
soft research signal I think it's reasonable to think that yes there is hormesis involved
in the mechanism and I think once some cells and some organelles like mitochondria get to a
certain level of degradation it might just push them over the edge if you go back and you read
about the details on autophagy and we've done several videos on that there was a great summary
article in the New England Journal on autophagy it's maybe not a bad thing to push those some of
those mitochondria that are just about to die go ahead and push them off the cliff so I think it's
way too early to throw in the towel on preventive metformin and besides it's still a very good drug
for prediabetes which causes death and disability in most of us so please don't over-interpret this
one study please don't give up on your metformin yet I'm certainly not thank you for your
interest
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we're getting ready to start one for CIMT as well so again people are really
excited about finding out their own status looking forward to seeing you there thanks