ReviewFrontiers in physiology2021
Adverse Effects of Metformin From Diabetes to COVID-19, Cancer, Neurodegenerative Diseases, and Aging: Is VDAC1 a Common Target?
Review in Frontiers in physiology, 2021. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 22 papers.
What it found
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The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
22 citing papers in PubMed, 40 citations in OpenAlex.
- Clinician awareness and implementation of vitamin BBMC primary care · 2026Article
- Diabetic cardiomyopathy: a comprehensive review of diagnosis, management, and future directions.Diabetology & metabolic syndrome · 2025Review
- Metformin Beyond Diabetes: A Precision Gerotherapeutic and Immunometabolic Adjuvant for Aging and Cancer.Cancers · 2025Review
- Metformin-Induced Apoptosis Is Mediated Through Mitochondrial VDAC1.Pharmaceuticals (Basel, Switzerland) · 2025Article
- Endoplasmic reticulum-mitochondria crosstalk: new mechanisms in the development of atherosclerosis.Frontiers in endocrinology · 2025Review
- Limitations and potential strategies of immune checkpoint blockade in age-related neurodegenerative disorders.The journal of physiological sciences : JPS · 2024Review
- Systematic Investigation of Dose-Dependent Protein Thermal Stability Changes to Uncover the Mechanisms of the Pleiotropic Effects of Metformin.ACS pharmacology & translational science · 2024Article
- The prevention and treatment of COVID-19 in patients treated with hemodialysis.European journal of medical research · 2023Review
- Cancer chemotherapy and beyond: Current status, drug candidates, associated risks and progress in targeted therapeutics.Genes & diseases · 2023Review
- BMP-7 Attenuates Sarcopenia and Adverse Muscle Remodeling in Diabetic Mice via Alleviation of Lipids, Inflammation, HMGB1, and Pyroptosis.Antioxidants (Basel, Switzerland) · 2023Article
- Action Mechanism of Metformin and Its Application in Hematological Malignancy Treatments: A Review.Biomolecules · 2023Review
- Review
- Review
- Betelvine (Piper betle L.): A comprehensive insight into its ethnopharmacology, phytochemistry, and pharmacological, biomedical and therapeutic attributes.Journal of cellular and molecular medicine · 2022Review
- Metformin: A Narrative Review of Its Potential Benefits for Cardiovascular Disease, Cancer and Dementia.Pharmaceuticals (Basel, Switzerland) · 2022Review
- Review
- The Molecular Mechanism of Human Voltage-Dependent Anion Channel 1 Blockade by the Metallofullerenol Gd@CBiomolecules · 2022Article
- The Function of Metformin in Aging-Related Musculoskeletal Disorders.Frontiers in pharmacology · 2022Review
- Insight into the interplay between mitochondria-regulated cell death and energetic metabolism in osteosarcoma.Frontiers in cell and developmental biology · 2022Review
- Morphometry and Stiffness of Red Blood Cells-Signatures of Neurodegenerative Diseases and Aging.International journal of molecular sciences · 2021Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
5 authors at 3 institutions in 2 countries.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Metformin has been used for treating diabetes mellitus since the late 1950s. In addition to its antihyperglycemic activity, it was shown to be a potential drug candidate for treating a range of other diseases that include various cancers, cardiovascular diseases, diabetic kidney disease, neurodegenerative diseases, renal diseases, obesity, inflammation, COVID-19 in diabetic patients, and aging. In this review, we focus on the important aspects of mitochondrial dysfunction in energy metabolism and cell death with their gatekeeper VDAC1 (voltage-dependent anion channel 1) as a possible metformin target, and summarize metformin's effects in several diseases and gut microbiota. We question how the same drug can act on diseases with opposite characteristics, such as increasing apoptotic cell death in cancer, while inhibiting it in neurodegenerative diseases. Interestingly, metformin's adverse effects in many diseases all show VDAC1 involvement, suggesting that it is a common factor in metformin-affecting diseases. The findings that metformin has an opposite effect on various diseases are consistent with the fact that VDAC1 controls cell life and death, supporting the idea that it is a target for metformin.
Indexed as
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.