Metformin vs Cancer/Aging

…and other items from this week’s health science news:

Metabolic health is more than most people think

Researchers (Dr. Emilie Lavallée et al.) found that ATP5I is a direct molecular target of metformin. This may not mean much to most readers, so: ATP5I is part of the enzyme complex that produces ATP, the primary “energy currency” of cells. Specifically it seems to help organize and assemble the ATP synthase machinery, rather than directly carrying out ATP production itself.

In other words: it helps your cellular energy mechanisms work better

As for why you should care about cellular energy mechanisms: you are made of cells, and the energy they have is the energy you have*.

^{*unless we want to get pedantic, in which case yes, you also have some gravitational potential energy due to your mass, including non-cellular mass, and its relationship to gravity. But that won’t help you get through your day, for the most part.}

Usefully, this also highlights a likely reason why people who take metformin have a lower risk of many cancers, bearing in mind that while things like diabetes and heart disease are thought of as metabolic disorders (and they are), so are cancer and aging:

Read in full: Why metformin matters beyond diabetes: New target could reshape aging and cancer research

Related: How Metformin Reduces Long COVID Risk By 63%

Kidney disease is fast becoming epidemic

Bad news: early chronic kidney disease (CKD) often causes no noticeable symptoms, allowing kidney damage to progress for years before being detected.

Worse news: CKD has entered the world’s top 10 causes of death, with approximately 1.5 million deaths in the US attributed directly to the disease in 2023 (yes, science typically lags with numbers like that, because of peer review, here we are in 2026 at time of writing, reading stats from 2023, but it’s better to have correct stats from a couple of years ago than guess at more recent ones without appropriate scientific rigor).

Further, impaired kidney function contributed to about 12% of global cardiovascular deaths, making all-too-clear the strong connection between kidney disease and heart disease.

Underdiagnosis remains a major problem too: many people are never tested, so the true prevalence may be higher than current estimates suggest; researchers emphasized greater use of urine testing and kidney function screening in at-risk individuals.

Good news: treatment options are improving! Newer medications, including SGLT2 inhibitors, GLP-1–based therapies, and nonsteroidal mineralocorticoid receptor antagonists, can help protect kidney function and reduce cardiovascular risk in appropriate patients.

However, prevention definitely remains much better than treatment, so it’s as well to get ahead of things and check out our “related” link below to learn now:

Read in full: A silent kidney crisis is spreading far faster than experts expected

Related: Are your Kidneys Ok? Detect Early To Protect Kidney Health (Here’s How)

When industry has beef with scientists

Researchers (Dr. Katherine Sievert et al.) researchers reviewed 500 nutrition studies published between 2014 and 2023 that examined links between meat consumption and health outcomes, then compared study conclusions with declared funding sources, author affiliations, and conflicts of interest.

In few words: a lot of those 500 studies had some form of meat-industry involvement (i.e: the meat industry paid for those studies, in part or in full), and these studies were 16x more likely to conclude that meat was harmless, beneficial, or health-promoting than studies without such ties to the meat industry.

So, in other words: when encountering headlines claiming that meat is healthy, it is worth checking who funded the study, whether authors disclosed financial relationships, and whether the findings align with the broader body of independent evidence.

Read in full: How ‘big meat’ shapes science to give steak a healthy glow up

Related: What Health Difference Does Pasture-Raised Beef Actually Make?

Take care!