Submitted by aml95 on Fri, 09/01/2026 - 00:00
Metformin is the most common medication used to treat diabetes in pregnancy. Although it is beneficial for the mother and safe for her baby, metformin easily reaches the baby’s bloodstream with unknown effects on long-term offspring health.
In a recent study, published in The Journal of Physiology (picked as the Editor’s Choice article in issue 17 of volume 603), researchers at the IMS-MRL led by Josca Schoonejans (previously a PhD student at Cambridge) and the Ozanne group, used a mouse model of gestational diabetes and followed the offspring until 12 months of age (equivalent to middle age in humans). They found that mice whose mothers had obesity had sex-specific adverse cardiovascular outcomes, with hypertension and vascular abnormalities in female offspring and stiffening of hearts in male offspring. Maternal metformin treatment did not prevent these adverse effects, but instead worsened the phenotype in males and introduced independent different cardiovascular problems in exposed offspring of both sexes. Therefore, metformin treatment adversely affected offspring cardiovascular health despite being beneficial for the mum. This highlights the complex balance of risk versus benefit that need to be considered when treating pregnant women, and the importance of studying both male and female children in human studies to test longer-term effects of medications used in pregnancy.
Have a look at the short video below, published as part of the Physiology Shorts series, where Josca explains the study and its finding in more detail.
Reference: Schoonejans, J.M., Wilsmore, P., Mennitti, L.V., Wong, K.K., Ashmore, T.J., Garrud, T.A.C., Blackmore, H.L., Patey, O.V., Fernandez-Twinn, D.S., Giussani, D.A. and Ozanne, S.E. (2025), Cardiovascular outcome in 12-month-old male and female offspring of metformin-treated obese mice. J Physiol, 603: 4747-4764. https://doi.org/10.1113/JP288696
