Metformin and weight loss?

[LittleGreyCat]

The information at the top of this forum says that Metformin can increase insulin sensitivity and aid weight loss.

I've been pondering this.
If you improve your insulin sensitivity then you should take more glucose out of you blood stream into your tissues.
Unless you are burning all the glucose you take into your tissues through base metabolism plus exercise then surely a greater insulin sensitivity will speed the passage of glucose through into fat?
So in some circumstances it might promote weight gain?
After all, the glucose/glycogen has to go somewhere.

Cheers

LGC

 

[zand]

I've never really thought it about it like that before LGC. I was only allowed Metformin for a few months and I was low carbing and exercising during that time. I found it helped me immensely. Weight loss is definitely not so easy now that my GP won't let me have Metformin anymore. I suppose I was so desperate to lose weight that I did everything I could to help the metformin to help me.

I don't know the answer to your question. I would say that in my case insulin resistance caused my obesity, so anything that helps insulin sensitivity would help with weight loss. I have only a basic understanding of the mechanics of it all. I understood that the insulin signalled to the muscles to use the glucose rather than store it as fat. If you are insulin resistant then the muscles don't hear that signal and more insulin is produced making you fatter. I'm probably totally wrong though as I'm not at all scientific, just fat. lol

If anyone can give the real answer I'd like to know too

 

[adrian207]

I've lost about a stone since being put on Metformin in mid Nov. Now I'm not saying that Metformin on its own made me lose weight, it was a combination of Metformin and low carb dieting. This combination also helps with the control of Blood Sugar levels as I found out after ditching the NHS suggestions of what I should eat to what the people on here who have actually tried and tested their low carb diet, told me what to eat.
Sorry Zand (my sweetness of the Orient) I can't help you, as like you I am not a rocket scientist and all this body function thing is far too complicated for me.