Metformin intake associates with better cognitive function in patients with Huntington's disease

PLoS One. 2017 Jun 20;12(6):e0179283. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0179283. eCollection 2017.

Abstract

Huntington's disease (HD) is an inherited, dominant neurodegenerative disorder caused by an abnormal expansion of CAG triplets in the huntingtin gene (htt). Despite extensive efforts to modify the progression of HD thus far only symptomatic treatment is available. Recent work suggests that treating invertebrate and mice HD models with metformin, a well-known AMPK activator which is used worldwide to treat type 2-diabetes, reduces mutant huntingtin from cells and alleviates many of the phenotypes associated to HD. Herein we report statistical analyses of a sample population of participants in the Enroll-HD database, a world-wide observational study on HD, to assess the effect of metformin intake in HD patients respect to cognitive status using linear models. This cross-sectional study shows for the first time that the use of metformin associates with better cognitive function in HD patients.

MeSH terms

  • Adult
  • Aged
  • Case-Control Studies
  • Cognition / drug effects
  • Cognition / physiology*
  • Cross-Sectional Studies
  • Female
  • Humans
  • Huntington Disease / drug therapy*
  • Hypoglycemic Agents / therapeutic use*
  • Male
  • Metformin / therapeutic use*
  • Middle Aged

Substances

  • Hypoglycemic Agents
  • Metformin

Grants and funding

RVM holds a “Miguel Servet” fellowship (Ref: CP11/00090) funded by the Instituto de Salud Carlos III (ISCIII, Madrid, Spain), a grant from the ISCIII (PI14/00949) and Fundació Telemarató de la TV3 (ref: 559). The funds from the ISCIII are partially supported by the European Regional Development Fund. RVM is also a Marie Curie fellow (CIG322034, EU). The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.