Diabetes drug can stave off leading cause of blindness | Japan Herald

Diabetes drug can stave off leading cause of blindness

Japan Herald (IANS) Wednesday 9th May, 2012

A drug prescribed for diabetes could also have another important use: treating one of the world's leading causes of blindness.

In lab rat and cell-culture experiments, scientists found that metformin, which is commonly used to control blood sugar levels in type 2 diabetes, also substantially reduced the effects of uveitis, an inflammation of the tissues just below the outer surface of the eyeball.

Uveitis causes 10 to 15 percent of all cases of blindness in the US, and is responsible for an even higher proportion of blindness globally. The only treatment now available for the disorder is steroid therapy, which has serious side-effects and cannot be used long-term, the journal Investigative Ophthalmology Visual Science reports.

"Uveitis has various causes - the most common are infectious diseases and autoimmune disorders - but they all produce inflammation within the eye," said University of Texas Medical Branch-Galveston, professor Kota V. Ramana, senior study author. "Metformin inhibits the process that causes that inflammation," added Ramana.

The scientists discovered metformin's efficacy when they tested it in rats given an endotoxin that mimicked the inflammatory effects of bacterial infection.

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