A common drug used to treat diabetes may help the elderly bounce back faster from muscle injury or illness.

Researchers at University of Utah Health discovered that Metformin can prevent muscle atrophy and fibrosis by targeting “zombie like cells,” called senescent cells.

Senescent cells impact muscle function and inflammation that may cause a hardening or scarring of tissues.

“We’re interested in the clinical application of this research,” said Micah Drummond, senior author of the study and professor of physical therapy and athletic training at the U of U College of Health. “For example, knee surgeries in the elderly are notoriously hard to recover from. If we give them a Metformin-type agent during the recovery period, could we help the muscles get back to normal faster?”

As people become older, they’re at a higher risk for falls, hospitalization and chronic disease.

“In the case of aging, we know that there’s immune dysfunction,” Drummond said. “As you get older, it becomes harder for your body to clear senescent cells and they accumulate. That’s one reason recovery is much slower for the elderly after periods of (muscle) disuse.”

In order to test Metformin intervention in humans during a preclinical trial, researchers recruited 20 healthy older adults. Each person had a muscle biopsy and MRI prior to the study, which involved five days of bed rest. Ten of the test subjects received Metformin and 10 received a placebo during the study.

“We saw two things in our study,” Drummond said. “When participants took Metformin during a bed rest, they had less muscle atrophy. During the recovery period, their muscles also had less fibrosis or excessive collagen. That build-up can make it harder for the muscle to properly function.”

Jonathan Petrocelli, lead author of the study, said this is the first paper that has made the direct connection between a therapy targeting cellular senescence and improved muscle recovery following disuse in aging.

“Our real goal is to have patients maintain their muscle mass and function as they age, because atrophy and weakness are some of the strongest predictors of disease development and death,” he said.

Drummond’s team is also combining Metformin with an amino acid, called leucine, which promotes growth and could accelerate healing even better. Preclinical animal studies have already demonstrated the potency of this combination.

“Metformin is cheap, effective and quite safe, so it’s exciting to see that we can use it to accelerate recovery in older individuals,” Drummond said.

The findings were pushed in Aging Cell and co-funded by the National Institutes of Health and University of Utah Center on Aging.

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