Posted on 05/27/2025 7:46:59 AM PDT by Red Badger
Metformin, the common diabetes drug, enhances egg-laying in older hens by triggering liver genes that promote yolk production and reduce fat buildup — offering a major breakthrough for sustainable poultry farming.
It turns out chickens and humans share more in common than you might expect, especially when it comes to fertility. And the surprising connection? A widely used diabetes medication called metformin.
Researchers at Penn State have discovered that metformin, best known as a treatment for type 2 diabetes and polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS) in people, can also help chickens lay more eggs. Specifically, it helps broiler breeder hens, the parent stock of meat chickens, stay fertile longer and produce more eggs as they age.
New Discovery: How Metformin Boosts Egg Production While the scientists have known for a couple of years that metformin improves egg-laying in chickens, they recently uncovered how it works. The findings were recently published in Biology of Reproduction.
Broiler breeder hens have been selectively bred for decades to produce fast-growing offspring, helping supply affordable chicken meat across the globe. But there’s a downside: as these hens grow older, their fertility declines rapidly. This drop in egg production closely resembles what happens in women with PCOS, a hormonal disorder that also impacts fertility.
That’s where metformin comes in. The same medication that helps regulate hormones and improve fertility in women with PCOS is now showing promise in doing something remarkably similar for chickens.
Human Fertility Clues from Chicken Studies
PCOS, a hormonal disorder affecting women characterized by irregular menstrual cycles, is the most widespread endocrinological condition, affecting roughly 4% to 12% of women, and the main cause of infertility in women, according to the National Institutes of Health. Metformin is often used off-label to treat PCOS symptoms, improving insulin sensitivity, lowering excess hormone levels, and helping to regulate menstrual cycles, potentially aiding fertility.
In a 2023 study published in the journal Reproduction, researchers at Penn State gave a group of hens a small daily dose of metformin over 40 weeks. The results were striking: The hens laid more fertile eggs, had lower body fat, and showed healthier reproductive hormone levels than those not given the drug.
Improved Reproduction and Metabolic Health
“These findings suggest that metformin can significantly improve ovarian function in broiler breeder hens,” said Ramesh Ramachandran, senior author on the study, professor of reproductive biology in the College of Agricultural Sciences.
The researchers then dug deeper to find out what exactly was happening inside the birds’ bodies, and they found the answer in the liver. The liver plays a key role in bird reproduction, as it’s where egg yolk precursors are made. Using advanced gene sequencing techniques at Penn State’s Huck Institutes of the Life Sciences, the team analyzed RNA, genetic material that regulates many biological functions, from liver samples.
Genes Turned On and Off by Metformin
Their findings, published in their latest paper in Biology of Reproduction, revealed that metformin “switched on” several genes involved in producing yolk proteins and maintaining stable blood sugar. At the same time, it “switched off” genes linked to fat buildup — mirroring how metformin works in humans with metabolic disorders.
Implications for Poultry Farming and Food Safety
“Essentially, metformin helps older hens stay metabolically healthier, which lets them keep producing eggs well beyond their usual decline,” said Evelyn Weaver, a postdoctoral researcher and lead author on both studies.
This finding could have major implications for poultry farming, the researchers said. By extending egg production in broiler breeder hens, farmers may be able to reduce flock turnover, improve animal welfare, and increase efficiency — all while using a medication that’s affordable and safe. Metformin is quickly metabolized by these hens, Weaver pointed out, so it poses no risk of entering the human food supply.
Reference:
“Metformin alters liver metabolism to sustain egg production in the reproductively aging broiler breeder hen”
by Evelyn Anne Weaver, Nathan Patrick Connolly, Tae Hyun Kim and Ramesh Ramachandran, 28 March 2025, Biology of Reproduction.
DOI: 10.1093/biolre/ioaf072
The research was conducted in the Ramachandran lab in Penn State’s Department of Animal Science, with contributions from Tae Hyun Kim, assistant professor of avian biology, and undergraduate researcher Nathan Connolly.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture and the National Institutes of Health funded the research.
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Ping!...........................
Are poor chickens aren’t producing enough already?!?
Will it leech into eggs? Not sure if I want metformin at breakfast.
Stop with the egg and chicken Fauci projects. Death hunts us all well enough without the Faucistein monsters, both microscopic and with legs.
I don’t care too much about what the drug does to the chicken. I want to know what the drugs in the chicken does to me and my family after we eat the eggs.
Your diabetes will be cured?................
Pretty good bet they will carry over the metformin into your digestive system as well.
Why would someone, even a research scientist at my first-year alma mater, look at a bottle of Metformin pills and suddenly think, "Hmm, I wonder what would happen to hens if I gave them this?"
As the Japanese would say, 変です。 (If you don't know Japanese, just trust me, it's a bad pun)
If the state ever wanted to dose the public with something unrecognized, yet dose specific, refrigerated, and within what you willingly consume at home, it would be eggs.
They did it before in the past with Quaker Oats, dosing each serving with uranium material to see what long term consumption of radioactive fallout would do to the health. They did it to thousands of families. When the family would be out of the house they would sneak inside and swap out store bought products with radioactive versions. The covert study went on for ten years.
Originally created to fight malaria in 1922... It didn’t work very well. Then they used it to fight the flu... Didn’t work on that either. Then they came up with a blood test that showed you how much sugar was in your system. If you took metformin, that sugar reading went down... So they finally had something this wonder drug created in 1922 could be useful for in the 1950s.
Now it cures everything.
Will it leech into eggs? Not sure if I want metformin at breakfast.
No. It metabolizes quickly and then is excreted. It does not stay in the chicken or its eggs.
Exactly. I do not want to drink fluoride in my water and do not want any drugs or antibiotics in chicken I eat.
“after we eat the eggs.”
The article refers to breeder hens ...
Same with Amphetamines. Now they feed them to children three times a day. The drug which was the catalyst to the insanity and mass psychosis of Nazi Germany, is now fed to our children like candy. Long term speed freaks are just a mess. The short term efficacy fades into long term misery.
Scientific curiosity. Many things have been ‘discovered’ by accident and ‘What if’............
Metformin, the common diabetes drug, enhances egg-laying in older hens
Apparently Metformin goes way back with these chicks.
Remember the craftsman in Ephesus who made easy money by selling silver shrines for Diana?
"By this craft we have our wealth" (εὐπορία = 666, lit. a good passage)
Well just take a look at that gal, she's obviously loaded...
Time to make the sequel to The Chicken Of Tomorrow.
https://youtu.be/1G0stojwYjI?si=cPIJf1pjHZI-3K-d
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