Study: Diabetes medication Metformin more effective in Black patients than in white

By Vanessa Blanchard
Contributing Writer

(Special from Dailey Digest News and The NorthStar News & Analysis) – Black people who treat their type 2 diabetes with a drug called Metformin are likely to receive more benefit than white people taking the same medication. Metformin is a common medication used to help control blood sugar levels in people with type 2 diabetes.

A new study, published in the Journal of Clinical Endocrinology and Metabolism on June 12, found that out of a sample of 19,600 patient records examined, improvement in blood sugar among Black patients was significantly higher than improvement in white patients. When taking the highest dose of the drug, both groups saw meaningful improvements in their levels, but white patients recorded a .42 percent drop in their glucose levels while black patients recorded a .9 percent drop.

The data used was gathered from prescription records dating from 1997 to 2013. Glucose levels were measured using a standard A1C test, which measures average blood sugar levels over the duration of four months. Participants in the study underwent no less than two of these tests in four months or more.

The study was conducted to fill in gaps in data surrounding the effects of Metformin on diversified clinical samples. “Metformin is normally the first treatment physicians prescribe for type 2 diabetes, but the standard of care is based on clinical trials where the vast majority of participants were white,” said Dr. L. Keoki Wil­liams, from the Henry Ford Health System in Detroit, Michi­gan. “We wanted to examine how the drug performed in an African American population. Our findings suggest that African Americans who have [type 2] diabetes actually respond better to Metformin than whites.”

Effects of Metformin on both groups within the study were “clinically important,” according to Williams. The target glucose level measured from A1C tests is supposed to be under seven percent, and since the average level for all participants was 7.5 percent, the rate of improvement is important for all involved.

Williams states that the better performance of the drug among black patients is important as they are more susceptible to complications related to diabetes. The rate of type 2 diabetes diagnoses among black populations is nearly double that of white groups so the fact that such a widely prescribed drug can help mitigate these risks is encouraging for patients and healthcare experts alike.

This article originally published in the June 23, 2014 print edition of The Louisiana Weekly newspaper.