Metformin could help overweight children and teens with autism lose weight.
A new study suggests that the diabetes drug, metformin, could help overweight children and teens with autism lose weight.
The number of children with autism has almost doubled since 2000, and while they must take medications to manage their symptoms, those medicines frequently cause substantial weight gain.
Autism is a neurodevelopmental dysfunction marked by impaired social interaction, verbal and non-verbal communication and limited and repetitive behavior. Parents usually discover the symptoms in the first two years of their child’s life. These signs often develop gradually, though some kids with autism reach their developmental milestones at a normal pace and then regress.
Early speech or behavioral interventions can aid children with autism gain self-care, social, and communication skills.
The study included 60 people with autism, aged 6 to 17. Due to the side effects of using antipsychotic medications for irritability and agitation, the subjects were overweight. It’s been ten years since the FDA first began approving drugs to help treat irritability in children with autism. For 16 weeks, the participants were given either metformin or an inactive placebo.
The findings proved that those who were given metformin had increased reductions in body mass index (BMI) in comparison to those who took the placebo.
The lead investigator and a retired professor of psychology at Ohio State University in Columbus, Ohio, Michael Aman said that the most important thing is that metformin didn’t cause behavioral changes, such as enhanced irritability. Metformin’s benefits have been around for decades, and the drug is proved to be safe. The study produced mild or no side effects in children.
Of the 28 participants in the metformin group who started the treatment, 11 percent marked declines of 8 to 9 percent in BMI. According to the results, no other members saw declines of more than 5 percent in BMI during the 16-week treatment. No meaningful differences were recorded in metabolic variables.
Overall, metformin was well tolerated, although participants faced gastrointestinal adverse events throughout a higher percentage of treatment days.
The results of the study have significant implications for kids to whom the advantages of atypical antipsychotics for treating irritability and agitation symptoms are hard to balance with the substantial weight gain that frequently follows their use.
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