The potential role of metformin in the treatment of Parkinson's disease

Abstract

The main treatments for Parkinson's disease (PD) currently include surgery, rehabilitation, and most commonly, drug therapy. However, the drugs that are currently used to treat PD provide only symptomatic relief and delayed disease progression but have no curative effect and cause many adverse reactions. When considering pathogenic factors and metabolic regulation, PD and type 2 diabetes have a high rate of comorbidity; this provides a theoretical basis for the treatment of PD with first-line antidiabetic drugs. Among these agents, metformin reduces neuronal damage in the brains of PD patients via neuroprotection and the inhibition of oxidative stress and inflammatory responses, thus providing a novel strategy for the clinical treatment of PD. Here, we present the current state of knowledge about the use of metformin to treat PD and discuss its clinical prospects.