Metformin use in pregnancy: promises and uncertainties

The early literature regarding metformin use in early pregnancy in humans was based on observational findings and of variable quality. Studies were usually small and it was often difficult to tease out the potential teratogenic effects of metformin, particularly as opposed to the well-established effects of maternal hyperglycaemia to increase risk of congenital malformation [9]. Similarly, animal studies have not been completely conclusive, and while increases in embryonic AMP-activated protein kinase (AMPK; AMPK activation being one potential effect of metformin) may be key in diabetic embryopathy, animal studies have not suggested an increase in embryopathy with early metformin exposure in vivo [10].

More recently, a meta-analysis based on metformin exposure in 351 women with PCOS has been carried out. Interestingly, the findings of this study do not suggest an increase in congenital anomaly with metformin use in pregnancy (OR of major birth defect 0.86 [95% CI 0.18, 4.08]) [11]. However, this estimate is based on a small sample size and, therefore, the confidence intervals remain wide.

Metformin has also been extensively analysed in the context of PCOS-associated miscarriage and pregnancy induction. Its use appears to be neutral with regards to miscarriage rates, although some argue that it actually reduces rates of miscarriage [12], and it is superior when used either alone or in combination with clomifene for ovulation induction as compared with placebo [13].

Taken together, while there are important theoretical concerns, metformin appears to be safe in early pregnancy, with no convincing evidence for an increase in congenital malformations or miscarriage with its use. Indeed, in the most common clinical setting of metformin exposure in pregnancy, a woman with type 2 diabetes already on metformin in early pregnancy, the overriding clinical issue should be that discontinuation of use would potentially expose the patient to complications associated with poor glycaemic control. Early clinical assessment and careful consideration of tight control of blood glucose remain key.

As previously mentioned, for some years the use of metformin was limited to specific geographical locations, such as Cape Town in South Africa, but the Metformin in Gestational Diabetes (MiG) randomised clinical trial by Rowan et al in 2008 altered medical practice in many countries [14]. In this study, 751 women with gestational diabetes (GDM) were randomised to either metformin or usual treatment with insulin therapy [14]. The safety profile for mothers appeared to be good. Gastrointestinal side effects led to discontinuation of metformin in 1.9% of women and reduction in dose in 8.8%. The primary outcome included a composite of neonatal hypoglycaemia (<2.6 mmol/l), respiratory distress, need for phototherapy, 5 min Apgar score <7 or premature birth (before 37 weeks), and was no different between the two treatment groups, being present in 32% of both the metformin- and insulin-treated participants. Secondary outcomes, including birthweight, neonatal anthropometrics and rates of large for gestational age (>90th percentile) were also equivalent between the groups. However, the rates of more-severe hypoglycaemia (<1.6 mmol/l) were reduced in the metformin group vs insulin therapy. It is important to note that some 46.3% of women in the metformin group required supplemental insulin treatment to maintain glycaemic control. Metformin appeared to have good patient acceptability, with 76.6% of women suggesting that they would choose metformin in a subsequent pregnancy compared with 27.2% of those initially assigned to insulin. Metformin was associated with less weight gain between enrolment in the trial and 36 or 37 weeks of pregnancy (0.4 ± 2.9 kg in the metformin group vs 2.0 ± 3.3 kg in the insulin group; p < 0.001) [14].

More recently, findings from a meta-analysis supported the safe use of metformin as a first-line treatment for GDM (after dietary interventions), showing that this drug has equivalent outcomes to primary insulin treatment with regards to its effects on newborns, and salutary effects on maternal weight gain [15]. Furthermore, this study suggested that metformin may have superior outcomes to the only other oral glucose-lowering agent used in pregnancy, glibenclamide (known as glyburide in the USA and Canada), although only few head-to-head studies were used in the analysis [15]. In support of these findings, a recent small RCT reported a similar safety and efficacy profile of metformin vs glibenclamide [16]. These outcomes are encouraging as, in general, metformin use is less expensive and generally easier for patients to administer than insulin. However, another detailed meta-analysis has also highlighted the limited extent of the evidence base for proper comparison of treatments [17].

Can we select which women are best suited for metformin therapy? Women who required supplemental insulin had a higher BMI in early pregnancy than those maintained on metformin (33.6 ± 8.6 kg/m² vs 31.1 ± 7.8 kg/m², insulin vs metformin), and higher baseline glucose levels (6.1 ± 1.1 mmol/l) compared with those not requiring supplemental insulin (5.3 ± 0.8 mmol/l) [14]. This is broadly similar for other glucose-lowering agents, such as glibenclamide, the failure of which is more likely when initial fasting glucose is high (>6.4 mmol/l) [18], and these observations make sense, a priori, as women with higher glucose levels are likely to have more severe disease. Similarly, women presenting with GDM earlier in pregnancy are more likely to require insulin and may be considered less suitable for oral agents.

The familiarity of metformin in general diabetes practice and the recent encouraging results from the MiG trial have led to speculation as to its possible uses in women with type 2 diabetes in pregnancy. It is important to note, however, that the evidence base is very small.

Given the insulin resistance of pregnancy, it is likely that most women with type 2 diabetes before pregnancy will require treatment with insulin during their pregnancy, simply to maintain glycaemic control. Is there a role then for metformin as an insulin-sparing agent? There are only a few observational studies on the use of metformin in type 2 diabetes in pregnancy; in 2000, Hellmuth et al reported use of metformin in 50 women in Denmark, 19 of whom had type 2 diabetes [19]. In this retrospective study examining the historical practice with oral glucose-lowering agents between 1966 and 1984, an increase in pre-eclampsia and perinatal mortality was noted with metformin use compared with treatment with sulfonylureas or insulin [19]. Levitt and colleagues reported observational data from South Africa; in their extensive study, women with pregestational type 2 diabetes were treated with insulin or oral glucose-lowering agents before and during pregnancy. Notably, this was also not a randomised study but reflected local practice. Critically, they observed a very high rate of perinatal mortality (125 events per 1000 births) in the group treated with oral glucose-lowering medication (predominantly metformin and glibenclamide) throughout pregnancy compared with women who converted from oral glucose-lowering agents to insulin (28 events per 1000 births) or women who converted from diet to insulin or remained on insulin during pregnancy (33 events per 1000 births) [8]. In contrast, in 2006 Hughes and Rowan reported observational data on the use of metformin in type 2 diabetes in the New Zealand population; they reported no increase in adverse pregnancy outcomes despite a worse risk-factor profile at baseline compared with women not taking metformin [20].

As detailed above, the evidence base for metformin use in pregestational type 2 diabetes is not strong, as trials were not randomised and liable to selection bias. Nevertheless, it would appear inadvisable to consider metformin as a sole agent for the management of women with type 2 diabetes in pregnancy. As a separate issue, there is a potential for use of metformin as an insulin-sparing agent with potential benefits on weight gain in pregnancy and, more, speculatively on glycaemic control. However, there is clearly not enough evidence at this time to recommend such use, with an obvious need for randomised evidence to elucidate the benefits, if any, of metformin as an additional agent for the management of type 2 diabetes in pregnancy. Currently ongoing randomised trials in this area will inform the debate in the future [21].

As noted above, increased embryo AMPK activity mediates some of the adverse effects of maternal diabetes on congenital malformations in mouse embryos, raising the concern that metformin stimulation of embryo AMPK activity could counteract the beneficial effects of lowering maternal blood glucose levels [27]. In addition, the effects of metformin on one-carbon pathways, which are similar to the effects of anti-folate chemotherapeutic drugs [28], and the essential role of folate in preventing neural tube (and other) malformations [29] raises further concern as to whether metformin might increase embryo malformation risk. However, at doses that stimulated maternal liver AMPK activity, metformin did not stimulate embryo AMPK activity or increase congenital anomalies [10]. Metformin did, however, stimulate AMPK activity and inhibit expression of a gene associated with congenital malformations in mouse embryonic stem cells (ESC) that were used as an in vitro model to study diabetic embryopathy [10]. Interestingly, the difference in metformin susceptibility between mouse embryos and mouse ESC was related to differential expression of metformin transporters [10]. Metformin is transported by organic cation transporters (OCTs) the normal function of which is to take up and extrude organic cations, such as thiamine, choline, neurotransmitters, creatinine, carnitine, guanidine and steroid hormones [30]. Slc47a1 and Slc22a3 mRNA, encoding the metformin transporters multidrug toxin and extrusion (MATE) 1 and OCT3, respectively, were expressed at negligible or undetectable levels in embryos, but Slc22a3 was expressed by ESC, albeit at much lower levels than by maternal liver [10]. The differences in metformin transporter expression and metformin responsiveness between normal mouse embryos and ESC could be a result of metabolic differences between ESC lines in culture and the normal embryo in vivo. It should be noted that the ESC line that was used to study potential teratogenic effects of metformin [10] does not exhibit the responsiveness to high glucose exposure and the high rates of glycolysis relative to oxidative phosphorylation of normal embryos or of ESC derived in physiological glucose media [31]. While conventional stem cell (embryonic and induced pluripotent) lines exhibit fewer, and less mature, mitochondria compared with more differentiated cells, and high rates of glycolysis relative to oxidative phosphorylation are essential for induction of pluripotency from differentiated cells [32‐34], conventional ESCs may be more dependent on mitochondrial metabolism (and less dependent on glycolysis) than the normal mouse embryo in vivo. One can speculate that the endogenous solutes taken up by metformin transporters (OCTs) have a function in mitochondrial metabolism, such that metformin transporters would not be expressed by cells that are highly dependent on glycolysis, but would occur upon maturation of mitochondrial respiration (Fig. 1). Consistent with this, metformin and phenformin competitively inhibit thiamine uptake by hepatocytes, causing inhibition of the tricarboxylic acid cycle [35]. Whether the human embryo also lacks metformin transporter expression and metformin responsiveness is not known. However, preimplantation human embryos have low mitochondrial content and are dependent on anaerobic metabolism [32], suggesting that early human embryos may be unresponsive to metformin.

Compared to the embryo, fetal and placental cells are more differentiated and more dependent on oxidative metabolism and mitochondrial activity. Metformin inhibits complex I of the respiratory chain, leading to an increased AMP:ATP ratio that stimulates AMPK activity [36‐38]. AMPK regulates several processes including gene expression and mechanistic target of rapamycin (mTOR)-induced effects on protein synthesis [27, 39‐41]. In addition, there are separated, but nonredundant mitochondrial and cytosolic pathways that generate one-carbon intermediates that can be inhibited by metformin, mimicking the ‘methyl folate trap’ that can occur during vitamin B₁₂ deficiency [28, 42, 43]. This can lead to methionine deprivation, decreased glutathione (reduced, oxidised disulphide and trisulphide forms), increased homocysteine, and decreased de novo synthesis of purines and pyrimidines [28, 42]. In addition, inhibition of one-carbon metabolism decreases levels of S-adenosylmethionine (SAM) and increases levels of S-adenosylhomocysteine (SAH), which could have epigenetic effects on gene expression because of reduced DNA and histone methylation. Further, a recent study using the round worm Caenorhabditis elegans showed that metformin inhibits cell growth and promotes longevity through inhibition of mitochondrial respiration, leading to reduced transit of the Ras-related GTP-binding protein C (RagC) GTPase through the nuclear pore complex (NPC) and inhibition of mTOR signalling [44]. This pathway is highly conserved throughout evolution and may explain the anti-cancer effect of metformin, because the same metformin response reduces viability of melanoma and pancreatic cancer cells [44]. These observations raise the question: since metformin appears to use some of the same mechanisms as nutrient restriction to promote longevity and inhibit cancer growth [42, 45], and dietary restriction (and vitamin B₁₂ deprivation) can programme increased cardiometabolic risk in the offspring [46, 47], could metformin exert long-term negative effects on cardiometabolic risk in the offspring?

In order for metformin to affect fetal or placental physiology and development, the cells in these tissues must be able to take up metformin. Furthermore, because metformin is positively charged at neutral pH, there must be a strong mitochondrial membrane potential for it to enter the mitochondrial matrix [48]. Human placentas express several OCT isoforms (OCT1, OCT2, OCT3, and MATE1 and MATE2) [49], and metformin may indirectly affect fetal development, for example, through altered nutrient delivery or placental growth; although, this requires further investigation. Whether fetal tissues express OCTs has not been carefully studied. It should be noted that metformin may not have lasting effects on organs whose growth and repopulation depends on progenitor cells, unless those progenitor cells take up and are metabolically or epigenetically altered by metformin. Yet, in the case of the liver, where it appears that hepatocytes are derived primarily from pre-existing hepatocytes rather than stem cells [50, 51], the epigenetic effects of metformin could have long-term outcomes if chromatin modifications are passed onto daughter cells.