Metformin treatment improves PTSD symptoms, finds study

New Orleans, LA: Metformin use may help in improving post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) symptoms among veterans, suggests a recent study in the ADA journal Diabetes.

There is a high prevalence of PTSD among US veterans for which there is no availability of effective psychotropic medications. About 25% of the veterans are diabetes patients for which metformin is the first-line treatment. Metformin is known to improve neurodegeneration outcomes, there is no evidence on the association between metformin use and PTSD-related symptom relief. This study by Shuian Liu from New Orleans, LA, and colleagues aimed to examine the association between metformin and a clinically meaningful reduction in PTSD symptoms (≥20 points reduction PTSD checklist for DSM-5 {PCL-5}) score)) among veterans with PTSD using data from Veterans Health Administration.

The participants were divided into two groups -- metformin cohort and control cohort. The metformin cohort was defined as first metformin use after a recorded PTSD diagnosis with a PCL-5 score ≥33 (i.e., clinical cut-score). The control cohort (never used metformin) was selected by propensity score 1:1 matching on the likelihood of initiating metformin. The association between metformin exposure and improvement in PCL-5 scores was assessed using multivariable Cox proportional regression.