Researchers have discovered that a common drug already already being used by patients for diabetes could also help treat one of the world's leading causes of blindness, uveitis. The findings were a result of laboratory rat testing and cell-culture experiments.
It was discovered that metformin (used to control blood sugar in type 2 diabetes), considerably reduced the effects of uveitis which causes 10 to 15 percent of all cases of blindness in the United States, and a higher proportion of blindness around the world.
The one treatment for the disease is steroid therapy, which has serious side effects for patients and can't be used for the long-term.
Uveitis is commonly caused by infectious diseases and autoimmune disorders. They produce inflammation within the eye. The metformin suppresses the process that results in the inflammation.
Rats were given an endotoxin that caused the inflammatory effects akin to an bacterial infection. The researchers results showed clearly that metformin was a very effective anti-uveitis agent which was therapeutic as well as preventive. The animals treated with metformin before the administering of the endotoxin were discovered to not develop uveitis, and if the metformin was administered after the onset of uveitis it was found to be therapeutic.
The drug works by activating an enzyme (AMPK) which reduces the activity of the protein NF-kappa B. The inhibition of this particular protein suppresses the production of inflammatory signaling molecules (cytokines and chemokines) needed to initiate and sustain uveitis.
As metformin is used widely in the treatment of diabetes it is likely it could be quickly adopted as an anti-uveitis drug.