Might the diabetes drug metformin have an anti-aging effect?

Check out this three video series to see what the science says.

The noxious weed Goats Rue was widely used as an herbal medicine back in the Middle

Ages for thirst and frequent urination, what we now know of as a cardinal symptom and sign

of diabetes.

The plant produces a mitochondrial poison known as gallagene.

One can imagine how this could help discourage grazing herbivores,

but why would crippling mitochondrial function help with diabetes?

Well, if you got the dose just right,

you could impair energy production just enough to spring AMPK into action.

AMPK would then dial down the liver's energy-intensive process of sugar production and

blood sugars would fall.

Gallagene proved too toxic for use in humans, presumably goats, but was tweaked into a

milder form in the 1950s.

That's the origin story of metformin, now even 60 plus years later, the most widely prescribed

diabetes drug in the world.

Sold originally as glucophage, meaning sugar eater, metformin is now prescribed annually more

than 90 million times in the U.S. alone.

Despite all the strides in biotechnology, Big Pharma, has yet to come up with a safer, more

effective first-line treatment for type 2 diabetes than a drug that retails at pennies per pill.

Ramping up AMPK isn't all that Metformin does.

For example, it also appears to foster the growth of good bacteria in the gut.

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