New Study Shows Common Diabetes Drug Improves Symptoms in Genetic Form of ALS in Mice
University of Florida neuroscientists, Laura Ranum, Ph.D., and Tao Zu, Ph.D., showed in a mouse-model study that metformin, a widely prescribed drug approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to treat Type 2 diabetes, reduces levels of specific mutant proteins central to the most common genetic form of ALS and frontotemporal dementia, or FTD, two intractable neurodegenerative diseases.
The study, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, or PNAS, paves the way for additional research into possible future treatments, not only for the specific type of ALS and FTD linked to a mutation in the C9orf72 gene but many other neurological diseases caused by similar so-called “repeat expansion” mutations, the researchers said.