Synonyms
Definition
Targeting Aging with Metformin (TAME) is a double-blind randomized placebo-controlled clinical trial that tests whether the commonly used antidiabetic drug metformin is capable of delaying the onset of age-related diseases and conditions including cancer, cardiovascular disease, and Alzheimer’s disease, by intervening into their underlying aging processes.
Overview
Metformin, a drug which is a first-line treatment of diabetes, modulates critical pathways in the biology of aging, prompting a proposal that it may be used to target aging to delay or prevent disease. Metformin has been used safely for over 60 years, is available as a generic drug, and is inexpensive. The TAME trial is being led by Dr. Nir Barzilai, who is the director of the Institute for Aging Research at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine, New York (Hall 2015; Newman et al. 2016; Barzilai et al. 2016).
Preliminary data from trials and...
References
Aroda VR, Ratner RE (2018) Metformin and type 2 diabetes prevention. Diabetes Spectr 31:336–342. https://doi.org/10.2337/ds18-0020
Barzilai N, Crandall JP, Kritchevsky SB, Espeland MA (2016) Metformin as a tool to target aging. Cell Metab 23:1060–1065. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cmet.2016.05.011
Blokh D, Stambler I, Lubart E, Mizrahi EH (2017) The application of information theory for the estimation of old-age multimorbidity. Geroscience 39:551–556. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11357-017-9996-4
Blokh D, Stambler I, Lubart E, Mizrahi EH (2019) An information theory approach for the analysis of individual and combined evaluation parameters of multiple age-related diseases. Entropy 21:572. https://doi.org/10.3390/e21060572
Gandini S, Puntoni M, Heckman-Stoddard BM et al (2014) Metformin and cancer risk and mortality: a systematic review and meta-analysis taking into account biases and confounders. Cancer Prev Res (Phila) 7:867–885. https://doi.org/10.1158/1940-6207.CAPR-13-0424
Hall SS (2015) A trial for the ages. Science 349:1275–1278. https://doi.org/10.1126/science.349.6254.1274
Howland RH (2013) A “glucose eater” drug as a therapeutic agent in psychiatry. J Psychosoc Nurs Ment Health Serv 51:13–16. https://doi.org/10.3928/02793695-20130805-01
Newman JC, Milman S, Hashmi SK et al (2016) Strategies and challenges in clinical trials targeting human aging. J Gerontol A Biol Sci Med Sci 71:1424–1434. https://doi.org/10.1093/gerona/glw149
Rena G, Lang CC (2018) Repurposing metformin for cardiovascular disease. Circulation 137:422–424. https://doi.org/10.1161/CIRCULATIONAHA.117.031735
Stambler I (2017) Recognizing degenerative aging as a treatable medical condition: methodology and policy. Aging Dis 8:583–589. https://doi.org/10.14336/AD.2017.0130
Tinetti ME, McAvay G, Trentalange M et al (2015) Association between guideline recommended drugs and death in older adults with multiple chronic conditions: population based cohort study. BMJ 351:h4984. https://doi.org/10.1136/bmj.h4984
UK Prospective Diabetes Study (UKPDS) Group (1998) Effect of intensive blood-glucose control with metformin on complications in overweight patients with type 2 diabetes (UKPDS 34). Lancet 352:854–865. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0140-6736(98)07037-8
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Section Editor information
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2021 Springer Nature Switzerland AG
About this entry
Cite this entry
Padki, M.M., Stambler, I. (2021). Targeting Aging with Metformin (TAME). In: Gu, D., Dupre, M.E. (eds) Encyclopedia of Gerontology and Population Aging. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-22009-9_400
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-22009-9_400
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-030-22008-2
Online ISBN: 978-3-030-22009-9
eBook Packages: Social SciencesReference Module Humanities and Social SciencesReference Module Business, Economics and Social Sciences