Research

Hormonal

Metformin treatment in type 2 diabetes patients significantly reduces the incidence of total, colorectal, liver, and pancreatic cancers, with effects observed at low doses (≤500 mg/day).

If you have Type 2 Diabetes and are taking metformin, this study suggests you may already be benefiting from a reduced risk of several cancers, including colorectal, liver, and pancreatic cancer, even at low doses (≤500 mg/day). Do not stop or change your medication without consulting your doctor, but be aware that your current treatment may offer protective benefits beyond blood sugar control.

GoodSupportsHIGH confidence
Metformin can reduce the incidences of several gastroenterological cancers in treated diabetes... Metformin dosage for a significant decrease in cancer incidence was ≤500 mg/day.
Meei-Shyuan Lee et al. · BMC Cancer · 2011

Why this rating

Large prospective cohort (n=480,984) with robust statistical adjustments, though observational design limits causal inference.

Source

Type 2 diabetes increases and metformin reduces total, colorectal, liver and pancreatic cancer incidences in Taiwanese: a representative population prospective cohort study of 800,000 individuals

Meei-Shyuan Lee et al. · BMC Cancer · 2011

DOI 10.1186/1471-2407-11-20

cohort · n=480984Cited 463×
Read the paper
DOI resolved against Crossref · corpus check 2026-06-10

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