An Updated Review on Repurposing of Metformin

A BSTRACT Even with the swift progress in scientific understanding of various diseases such as cancer, cardiovascular diseases, and diabetes, there remains a need for effective new treatments. Now, other drug development strategies, such as repurposing existing medicines to treat other diseases, which will save time and money, are being investigated. Since metformin is one of the most used drugs worldwide and it is investigated for repurposing uses, therefore, this review investigated the potential uses of metformin beyond its established use in diabetes and highlighted its repurposing for several diseases such as cancer, cardiovascular diseases, polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS), weight reduction, lowering plasma lipids, delaying the aging process, and its possible role in reducing mortality in the pandemic COVID-19. An extensive literature search was conducted on PubMed and Google Scholar databases to identify relevant literature.