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Longevity supplements › Metformin and Aging › Studies

Randomized trial · measured other health measures

4-month trial in 72 frail older adults: metformin did not change walking speed

Witham and colleagues · The lancet. Healthy longevity · 2025

Original title: Metformin and physical performance in older people with probable sarcopenia and physical prefrailty or frailty in England (MET-PREVENT): a double-blind, randomised, placebo-controlled trial.

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What the study found

No difference

Walk speed at 4 months was 0·57 m/s with metformin and 0·58 m/s with placebo (adjusted treatment effect 0·001 m/s [95% CI -0·06 to 0·06]; p=0·96). 12 (34%) metformin and three (8%) placebo participants had hospital admissions.

The study at a glance

Type of study
Randomized trial
Who or what was studied
72 people · Adults aged 65 and over with slow walking, weak muscles and prefrailty or frailty (average age 80.4)
What was tested
500 mg metformin three times a day vs matching placebo for 4 months
What it measured
Other health or performance measures
Daily amount
1500 mg a day
How long
17 weeks
Who has a stake
Company stake
One author gets consultancy fees from Rejuvenate Biomed for sarcopenia trials; trial funded by a public health research institute.
Journal
The lancet. Healthy longevity, 2025
Source
PubMed record 40147475. This page is based on the abstract only.

How much this study counts

  • ✓Randomized: people were put into groups by chance, so the groups start out alike.
  • ✓Compared with a placebo, a dummy treatment.
  • •Medium size: 72 people.
  • •Lasted 17 weeks.
  • •Measured other health measures, not aging, frailty and death in people without diabetes itself.
  • –Company stake: One author gets consultancy fees from Rejuvenate Biomed for sarcopenia trials; trial funded by a public health research institute.
  • •Summarized from the PubMed abstract only. The full paper may hold details the abstract leaves out.

✓ Strength– Limit• Note

These points come from fixed rules about the type of study, its size and length, what it measured, and who has a stake. Every study on Digestery gets the same rules.

Where this study sits

Each dot is one on-topic paper on this question. Steps near the top answer the question more directly.

↑ Stronger evidence

  1. Trials in people: aging and age-related disease

    1

    1 benefit

  2. Trials in people: other measures

    3

    2 no difference, 1 harm

    ↑ This study is the ringed dot

  3. Trials in people: lab tests or safety

    6

    2 benefit, 2 mixed, 2 no difference

  4. Population studies

    8

    6 benefit, 2 no difference

  5. Blood levels and genes

    0

    None among the papers we read.

  6. Animals

    3

    2 benefit, 1 harm

↓ Weaker evidence

  • Points to benefit
  • Mixed
  • No difference
  • No direction
  • Points to harm

How it fits with the other research

The short answer to “Does metformin slow aging in people without diabetes?”

Not shown in people without diabetes.

Confidence: low. Based on 26 on-topic papers.

Read the full answer

Of the other 2 papers on the same step: 1 no difference, 1 harm. This one found no difference.

  • Quoted in “What we found”: In 72 people aged 65 and over with weak muscles and slow walking, 4 months of metformin did not change walking speed: 0·57 m/s versus 0·58 m/s on placebo.
  • Part of the finding “Trials of walking and frailty found no benefit”.
  • Marked as a key paper in the research timeline: Frailty trial: no gain in walking speed.
  • Open item for a person: Witham 2025 (MET-PREVENT) abstract does not say whether participants had diabetes; check full text.

Other papers on the same step

See all 26 studies on this question

How this page was made

Label

First read of the abstract
Claude Sonnet
Independent second read
Claude Haiku
Differences settled
The two reads agreed on every checked field. Claude Opus 5.5.
Headline
Claude Sonnet, from the checked study record. A script checked its numbers and wording.
Numbers
Checked against the abstract by a script
“How much this study counts”
Fixed rules, the same for every study
Source check by a person
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