People with lung conditions, like COPD and idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis (IPF), often experience flare-ups (also known as exacerbations). This is where their breathing and other symptoms suddenly get worse over a short period of time, often leaving them unable to breathe.
Even with treatment, a severe flare-up can be fatal. In the UK, around 4% of people admitted to hospital with a COPD flare-up will die each year – that’s around 30,000 people.
What is the link between lung conditions and diabetes?
Many people with lung conditions also have diabetes, which can contribute to breathlessness and increased inflammation in the lungs, making their symptoms worse. But some studies have suggested that metformin, a drug used to treat type 2 diabetes, could prevent COPD and IPF flare-ups. So far, these studies have been very small, meaning that we can’t apply their findings to the real world just yet.
Fast-tracking our understanding
In an Asthma + Lung UK funded research project, Bohee Lee wants to fast-track our understanding of whether metformin can prevent these flare-ups, so that people with lung conditions can get access to this potential new treatment sooner. We’ve been working with her to see if drugs used to treat diabetes can prevent asthma attacks. We’ve seen promising results so far, suggesting that metformin could reduce the risk of asthma attacks by up to a third.
Now, Bohee wants to find out whether real-world data supports the promising results from studies of people living with COPD and IPF. Her team are using advanced statistics methods to examine data records from hospitals and GPs, to see if there’s a link between COPD and IPF patients being prescribed metformin and having a reduced number of flare-ups.
Helping people get access to this promisng treatment sooner
This is a huge study, using 100,000s of records from people who have consented for their health data to be shared as part of research projects. This means that the results will be more reliable than previous studies with smaller number of participants.
Obtaining evidence from medical records is much quicker and cost-effective compared to clinical trials and makes great use of knowledge that we already have, but that hasn’t been fully explored yet. This means that findings from this study could be applied to national treatment guidelines more quickly – and people with lung conditions could get access to this treatment sooner.
What impact could this have on people with lung conditions?
COPD and IPF flare-ups often require hospitalisation and can be fatal. There’s currently no treatment to prevent these attacks, only medications that can ease symptoms. If Bohee’s research finds a clear link between metformin and a reduction in flare-ups, people with COPD and IPF could have access to a new treatment that prevents these life-threatening flare-ups from occurring in the first place.
Bohee’s research has also found that many people with lung conditions aren’t prescribed metformin until over two years after they’ve been diagnosed with diabetes. If we can demonstrate that metformin can also reduce their risk of life-threatening lung health flare-ups, more people with lung conditions could be prescribed this potentially life-saving drug sooner.