One of the benefits of this new habit of getting up at 5:00 a.m. every morning to go to the gym is that I catch up on my news. There is literally nothing else on that early other than infomercials! I NEVER used to get up and watch the news in the morning at home, but now it passes the time on the treadmill pretty quickly!
This morning, I saw a story on MSNBC about a Metformin study that shows a correlation between type II diabetics who have used the drug for five years and an OVER 50% less chance of developing breast cancer. It does not talk about women with PCOS who take the drug, and more studies are being conducted, but it was still encouraging news!
I have read that women with PCOS have in increased risk of developing breast cancer because they typically have higher insulin levels (even if not diabetic) and since high insulin levels promote abnormal cell growth, PCOS patients are at an increased risk for several types of cancer.
The thing I found most interesting about this article is that in addition to the reduced cancer rates, most likely attributed to lower insulin levels, some studies are suggesting that the Metformin actually inhibits tumor growth in patients already diagnosed with breast cancer. A study is being conducted now to see if Metformin helps lower the rate of recurrance of breast cancer after standard treatment in early breast cancer patients.
Personally, knowing all of this information is going to make my Metformin pills a little easier to swallow every day!
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