Vitamin B12 Deficiency Associated with Long-Term Use of Metformin |Biomedgrid

Type 2 diabetes is increasing in prevalence and has a significant impact on health care resources and causes a variety of health problems, some of which can affect the quality of life. The number of patients diagnosed with type 2 diabetes has increased steadily in recent years. There are many medicines available to treat diabetes and despite the development of many newer drugs, metformin continues to be widely used as a treatment option. The drug has proven itself over time and is still recommended as the first-line therapy. Metformin remains the most widely used oral antihyperglycemic (insulin-sensitizing) agent and is prescribed to more than 100 million people worldwide [1-3]. Metformin is generally well tolerated and effective in maintaining long-term glucose control. Possible side effects of metformin are gastrointestinal intolerance and the rare occurrence of lactic acidosis, which is more likely to occur in moderate to severe chronic kidney disease. However, in recent decades, several observational studies, systematic reviews, and meta-analyses have reported a connection between long-term metformin treatment and a biochemical vitamin B12 deficiency, including overt or borderline vitamin B12 deficiency. This article aims to prove Vitamin B12 deficiency associated with long-term metformin treatment for diabetes patients [4,5].