Repurposed diabetes drug can reduce pain for those with knee arthritis and overweight or obesity, clinical trial shows

Medical Xpress / Monash University / JAMA ^ | April 25, 2025 | Flavia Cicuttini et al

[ConservativeMind]

A common diabetes drug can reduce the pain of people with knee osteoarthritis and overweight or obesity, possibly delaying the need for knee replacements, research has found.

Metformin, which is commonly prescribed to treat type 2 diabetes, reduced knee arthritis pain over six months in a clinical trial.

The research was performed as a community-based study using telehealth. Some of the 107 participants with pain from knee osteoarthritis, who had a mean age of 60, took up to 2,000 mg of metformin daily for six months. Others took the placebo. None had diabetes.

Knee pain was measured on a 0–100 scale, with 100 being the worst. The metformin group reported a 31.3 point reduction in pain after six months, compared to 18.9 for the placebo group. This was considered a moderate effect on pain.

"These results support use of metformin for treatment of symptomatic knee osteoarthritis in people with overweight or obesity," the researchers found.

Professor Cicuttini said effective treatments that improved knee pain in osteoarthritis were limited. She said this led some patients and their doctors to seek alternative treatments including surgery.

This resulted in major problems managing knee OA including an increase in the rate of knee replacements performed for earlier stages of OA. This was based on the idea that effective treatments for knee OA were limited and that knee replacements lasted a long time.

"At first glance this may seem reasonable, but it is a major problem because patient dissatisfaction with knee replacements is already high at between 20–30%, even when the operation is technically perfect," Professor Cicuttini said. "Dissatisfaction rates are highest when done for early knee OA.

"Metformin works in a number of ways on the knee, including affecting low-grade inflammation and other metabolic pathways that are important in knee OA," she said.

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TOPICS: Health/Medicine
KEYWORDS: diabetes; knee; treatment

[ConservativeMind]

Metformin appears to help heavier people without diabetes to experience less pain with knee osteoarthritis, partly from helping reduce inflammation.

[ConservativeMind]

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[House Atreides]

Darn… it sounds like the diabetics have been selfishly keeping all the good stuff for themselves.

[Katya]

I suppose with all the Ozempic use, drug companies are going to have to figure out NEW markets...

[telescope115]

Sounds interesting. My wife has had one knee replaced (2017) and now desperately needs the other one done, but the doc has been dragging his feet. Her next evaluation is in July. She can barely walk with a cane now.

[FroggyTheGremlim]

Metformin was recommended for me to help with a skin ailment I have.

I took it for a day. It gave me nasty diarrhea so I quit. The skin ailment is gone too.

[Bloody Sam Roberts]

2000mg? That’s a shite load of Metformin.

[Delta 21]

8 pill dose for me. I take 2 a day because thats all this trooper can handle. Can you imagine the bathroom visits with that dose?