Combination of diabetes drug and antihypertensive kills cancer cells

Deadly Combination: Medication cocktail turns cancer cells off the juice

Researchers have found that a commonly used diabetes drug in combination with a high blood pressure medicine inhibits cancer growth. In addition, this drug cocktail cuts off the energy supply of cancer cells and thereby kills them.

More and more cancers

Health experts say more and more people are getting cancer. According to the World Cancer Report of the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC), there could be 20 million cancer cases annually worldwide by the year 2025. In Germany, the number of new diagnoses has almost doubled since 1970. However, more and more people today are surviving cancer. This also has to do with the fact that new insights are constantly being gained on how cancer can be treated. Most recently, researchers report a study in which it was shown that a certain cocktail of drugs can kill cancer cells.

According to a new study, a commonly used diabetes drug in combination with a blood pressure reducer can cut off the energy supply of cancer cells and kill them. (Image: crevis / fotolia.com)

Energy supply of cancer cells is cut off

The often prescribed diabetes drug metformin not only lowers blood sugar levels, but also has an effect on Parkinson's disease, as researchers from Tübingen reported last year.

It also has a cancer-inhibiting effect. However, the current dose for the treatment of diabetes is too low to curb cancer growth, the University of Basel reported in a statement.

However, researchers led by Prof. Michael Hall at the Biozentrum of the University of Basel have been able to show in an earlier study that the antihypertensive drug syrosingopine enhances the cancer-inhibiting effect of metformin.

In a follow-up study, recently published in the journal Cell Reports, scientists now report that this cocktail of drugs cuts off the energy supply to cancer cells.

The ensuing lack of energy eventually drives the cancer cells into "suicide".

Particularly high energy consumption

As the experts explain, cancer cells have a particularly high energy requirement due to their increased metabolism and rapid growth.

A limiting factor is the NAD + molecule, which plays a central role in the conversion of nutrients into energy.

"In order to keep the energy-producing machinery running, NAD + needs to be continuously made from NADH," explains Don Benjamin, first author of the study.

"Interestingly, both metformin and syrosingopine prevent the regeneration of NAD +, but in two very different ways."

Mode of action under the magnifying glass

Many tumor cells shift their metabolism towards sugar burning, which means they gain their energy mainly through the breakdown of glucose to lactate.

However, when lactate accumulates in the cell, this degradation path is paralyzed. Therefore, the cancer cells with specific lactate transporters pass it out of the cell again.

"We have now discovered that syrosingopin eliminates the two most important transporters, preventing the export of lactate from the cell," says Benjamin.

"A high lactate concentration in the cell in turn stops the recycling of NAD +."

Deadly combination

According to the scientists, the antidiabetic metformin blocks the second way of regenerating NAD+.

Therefore, combined treatment with the antihypertensive drug leads to a complete loss of NAD + recycling capacity.

The NAD + deficiency ultimately kills the cell as it can no longer produce enough energy.

The inhibition of lactate transporters by syrosingopine or other similar drugs improves the anticancer effects of metformin and thus appears to be a promising approach to fighting cancer, according to the researchers. (Ad)