Diabetes Drug Metformin in Baby Weight Trial

Pregnant women, who are also obese, are set to take part in a pioneering UK-based drug trial that will aim to lower the chances of their children being obese, too.

The trial will involve diabetic drug treatment metformin - a product that's been linked to treating many other conditions, besides its main target area.

Women who are overweight give growing babies too much food and, as a result, both can experiences subsequent health issues. Those involved in the metformin research trial will examine whether the drug can control these food transfer levels and have highlighted how, among UK childbirth hospital admissions, some 15 per cent involve women who are overweight.

Baby Weight Drug Trial

So, rather than reduce the weight of the mothers, the goal of the baby weight drug trial is that, by involving Metformin, the food supply being passed on the growing baby will reduce, instead.

Especially large babies, weighing in excess of ten pounds, are approximately 50 per cent more likely to become obese adults - a statistic that suggests their development is set-up to occur from a very early age. 400 pregnant women will take part in the trial and none of them have diabetes.

Near the end of 2010, new medical research suggested metformin could treat Alzheimer's while, a few weeks earlier, a separate study put forward that it could prevent lung cancer progression, too.

Metformin Baby Weight Trial

‘Rates of obesity in adults and children are rising exponentially in the UK, as in other developed nations, and there are major causes for concern', documents related to the metformin baby weight trial explain, continuing: ‘The problem of maternal obesity, leading to programming of future life obesity risk in offspring, and manifest by excess birthweight, is reaching epidemic proportions.

‘We believe that metformin will likely be an effective therapy in interrupting this cycle.'

Referring to the trial, charity organisation Weight Concern's medical director, Doctor Ian Campbell, described it as "intriguing and, sadly...necessary to look at."

"In an ideal world you would want women to take stock of their weight before pregnancy, but in reality that's not going to happen", he added.