Metformin, one of the most commonly prescribed drugs against type 2 diabetes worldwide for decades, has been linked to the birth of babies, especially boys, with birth defects when their fathers took the drug before the child was conceived. According to a new great danish scientific research, the first to make this correlation. The risk is 1.4 times higher for these children.
The synthetic substance metformin, which lowers blood glucose by boosting the body’s sensitivity to the hormone insulin, is a generic first-line diabetes drug used since the 1950s. It is usually prescribed when it has not been controlled. blood sugar levels through proper diet, weight loss and exercise and often before other more expensive drugs are given.
Researchers at the Universities of Southern Denmark and Stanford, California, published in the Annals of Internal Medicine, according to Reuters and Science, analyzed data on nearly 1.12 million births in Denmark between 1997 and -2016, of which 3.3% of babies had one or more birth defects. 5.2% of 1,451 babies with a father who had taken metformin in the previous trimester of conception had congenital defects (in the genital, digestive, urinary, cardiovascular or other systems), compared with 3.3% among the rest of the babies. whose father had not taken metformin before.
In particular, the risk of developing a birth defect in the boy’s genitals was more than three times higher when the father had taken metformin (0.9% vs. 0.24% in infants not exposed to metformin). If the father was taking insulin instead of metformin before conception or if he was taking metformin earlier (eg one year before conception), the risk of giving birth to a boy with problems was not increased. It is believed that metformin can adversely affect the prospective father’s sperm (it is not yet clear through which biological mechanism) and this in turn can affect the baby, especially the boy.
The researchers said that the study should not prevent men with diabetes from taking metformin, as the results of the study should be considered preliminary and the issue needs further investigation in order to confirm the findings. However, when a man thinks of having a child, he could turn to another drug instead of metformin, but after consulting a doctor, according to Danish public health professor Maarten Vensink, who stressed that “metformin is a safe drug, cheap and does what it needs to do “. He added that any change in the drug “is a complex decision that a couple must make with their doctors”.
“Given the widespread use of metformin as a first-line treatment for type 2 diabetes, confirmation of these findings is urgently needed. In the meantime, clinical guidance is needed to help couples plan their pregnancies, weighing the risks and benefits of using them. metformin from the father, in relation to alternative drugs, “said Jermaine Buck Lewis, professor of reproductive epidemiology at George Mason University in Virginia.
It should also be borne in mind that, in addition to metformin, type 1 or type 2 diabetes itself can disrupt male fertility, affecting both the hormone testosterone and sperm production, and can also cause erectile dysfunction.
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