The DOI matches its Crossref record; 99 of the 99 references it cites were found in a registry or an index.
Metformin in cancer: translational challenges
Open accessAbstract
The anti-diabetic drug metformin is rapidly emerging as a potential anti-cancer agent. Metformin, effective in treating type 2 diabetes and the insulin resistance syndromes, improves insulin resistance by reducing hepatic gluconeogenesis and by enhancing glucose uptake by skeletal muscle. Epidemiological studies have consistently associated metformin use with decreased cancer incidence and cancer-related mortality. Furthermore, numerous preclinical and clinical studies have demonstrated anti-cancer effects of metformin, leading to an explosion of interest in evaluating this agent in human cancer. The effects of metformin on circulating insulin levels indicate a potential efficacy towards cancers associated with hyperinsulinaemia; however, metformin may also directly inhibit tumour growth. In this review, we describe the mechanism of action of metformin and summarise the epidemiological, clinical and preclinical evidence supporting a role for metformin in the treatment of cancer. In addition, the challenges associated with translating preclinical results into therapeutic benefit in the clinical setting will be discussed.
Overview
The claims and statistics of this paper haven’t been checked yet.
Run the check — free, no account needed. It reads the open-access text and checks the sources it cites.
Integrity signals
Registry
Cites
Statistics
Verification
Claims the paper makes
The claims and statistics of this paper haven’t been checked yet.
Run the check — free, no account needed. It reads the open-access text and checks the sources it cites.
Self-check
Percentages, sums and reported differences re-computed from the paper’s own numbers.
The self-check needs the paper’s full text.
Citations
Cites
Overweight, obesity, and mortality from cancer in a prospectively studied cohort of U.S. Adults
Calle, E. E., Rodriguez, C., Walker-Thurmond, K., & Thun, M. J. (2003) · New England Journal of Medicine · doi:10.1056/nejmoa021423 · Cited by 7,696
AMPK Phosphorylation of Raptor Mediates a Metabolic Checkpoint
Gwinn, D. M., Shackelford, D. B., Egan, D. F., Mihaylova, M. M., Mery, A., Vasquez, D. S., Turk, B. E., & Shaw, R. J. (2008) · Molecular Cell · doi:10.1016/j.molcel.2008.03.003 · Cited by 3,849
Transitions between epithelial and mesenchymal states: acquisition of malignant and stem cell traits
Polyak, K., & Weinberg, R. A. (2009) · Nature Reviews Cancer · doi:10.1038/nrc2620 · Cited by 3,302
The American Journal of Managed Care
(2020) · The American Journal of Managed Care · doi:10.37765/ajmc · Cited by 3,237
Kahn, B. B., Alquier, T., Carling, D., & Hardie, D. G. (2005) · Cell Metabolism · doi:10.1016/j.cmet.2004.12.003 · Cited by 2,799
Metformin and reduced risk of cancer in diabetic patients
Evans, J. M. M., Donnelly, L. A., Emslie-Smith, A. M., Alessi, D. R., & Morris, A. D. (2005) · BMJ · doi:10.1136/bmj.38415.708634.f7 · Cited by 2,388
Insulin and insulin-like growth factor signalling in neoplasia
Pollak, M. (2008) · Nature Reviews Cancer · doi:10.1038/nrc2536 · Cited by 2,059
The Kinase LKB1 Mediates Glucose Homeostasis in Liver and Therapeutic Effects of Metformin
Shaw, R. J., Lamia, K. A., Vasquez, D., Koo, S.-H., Bardeesy, N., DePinho, R. A., Montminy, M., & Cantley, L. C. (2005) · Science · doi:10.1126/science.1120781 · Cited by 1,950
Rheb GTPase is a direct target of TSC2 GAP activity and regulates mTOR signaling
Inoki, K., Li, Y., Xu, T., & Guan, K.-L. (2003) · Genes & Development · doi:10.1101/gad.1110003 · Cited by 1,911
AMP-activated protein kinase induces a p53-dependent metabolic checkpoint
Jones, R. G., Plas, D. R., Kubek, S., Buzzai, M., Mu, J., Xu, Y., Birnbaum, M. J., & Thompson, C. B. (2005) · Molecular Cell · doi:10.1016/j.molcel.2005.03.027 · Cited by 1,619
Cited by
Targeting mitochondria metabolism for cancer therapy
Weinberg, S. E., & Chandel, N. S. (2015) · Nature Chemical Biology · doi:10.1038/nchembio.1712 · Cited by 1,381
Metformin inhibits mitochondrial complex I of cancer cells to reduce tumorigenesis
Wheaton, W. W., Weinberg, S. E., Hamanaka, R. B., Soberanes, S., Sullivan, L. B., Anso, E., Glasauer, A., Dufour, E., Mutlu, G. M., Budigner, G. S., et al. (2014) · eLife · doi:10.7554/elife.02242 · Cited by 1,105
Obesity and diabetes: the increased risk of cancer and cancer-related mortality
Gallagher, E. J., & LeRoith, D. (2015) · Physiological Reviews · doi:10.1152/physrev.00030.2014 · Cited by 806
Shackelford, D. B., Abt, E., Gerken, L., Vasquez, D. S., Seki, A., Leblanc, M., Wei, L., Fishbein, M. C., Czernin, J., Mischel, P. S., et al. (2013) · Cancer Cell · doi:10.1016/j.ccr.2012.12.008 · Cited by 585
Obesity and cancer risk: evidence, mechanisms, and recommendations
Vucenik, I., & Stains, J. P. (2012) · Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences · doi:10.1111/j.1749-6632.2012.06750.x · Cited by 571
Metadata
- Authors
- Dowling, R. J. O., Niraula, S., Stambolic, V., & Goodwin, P. J.
- Venue
- Journal of Molecular Endocrinology
- Publisher
- Bioscientifica
- Published
- 2012-02-20
- Volume
- 48
- Issue
- 3
- Pages
- R31-R43
- ISSN
- 0952-5041 (ISSN-L)
- 1479-6813
- OpenAlex
- W2140164776
- Cited by
- 355
- References
- 99
- FWCI
- 14.17
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- bronze
About these checks
Registry, retraction, Cites and statistics results are computed, not judged, with one exception: a printed reference that no index lists is read once by a model before it counts as a citation error. Claims are extracted by a model and kept only when their quote appears verbatim in the text; each cited source is then checked, with a model’s help, for whether it says what the claim relies on. Those verdicts can be wrong — read the claim’s quote and the cited source before relying on one.
Statistics and arithmetic are recomputed, not judged.
Confidence bands are shown only for fields calibrated on our annotated test set. None is calibrated yet, so no band is shown.
What counts as a claim ›How we measure confidence ›How we check this ›
Are you an author, or do you see a problem with this page? Request a review
How to cite
Cite CoChat for the checks on this page, and the paper for its own findings.
- This page
- CoChat. (2026). Citation check: Metformin in cancer: translational challenges. https://app.cochat.ai/papers/10.1530/jme-12-0007
- The paper
- Dowling, R. J. O., Niraula, S., Stambolic, V., & Goodwin, P. J. (2012). Metformin in cancer: translational challenges. Journal of Molecular Endocrinology. https://doi.org/10.1530/jme-12-0007
Data sources
Bibliographic data: Semantic Scholar, OpenAlex, Crossref.
Contains information from the Semantic Scholar Academic Graph Datasets, made available under the ODC Attribution License (ODC-BY 1.0).
Semantic Scholar’s data is described in: Kinney, R., et al. (2023). The Semantic Scholar Open Data Platform. arXiv:2301.10140.