And unlike a prescription medication, it\u2019s available to virtually everyone. <\/p>\n
![\"Illustration](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/131164975.jpg\")
Metformin is a treatment for Type 2 diabetes that\u2019s been touted for potentially slowing the aging process. SolsticeStudio \u2013 stock.adobe.com<\/p>\n
The findings come from an analysis of participants in the landmark Diabetes Prevention Program (DPP) and its follow-up study, the Diabetes Prevention Program Outcomes Study DPPOS, which tracked thousands of adults from 1996 through 2021.<\/p>\n
The winning strategy? Rigorous exercise and a healthy, balanced diet.<\/p>\n
Researchers found that among adults with prediabetes, lifestyle intervention \u2014 specifically a low-fat, low-calorie diet and at least 150 minutes of physical activity each week \u2014 was associated with a lower burden of multimorbidity over more than two decades of follow-up. <\/p>\n
Metformin, meanwhile, performed no better than a placebo.<\/p>\n
Multimorbidities refers to having two or more chronic health conditions at the same time. In this study, researchers looked at 15 common conditions in the Medicare claims database, including hypertension, cancer, dementia, Alzheimers disease, chronic kidney disease, heart failure, osteoporosis and stroke.<\/p>\n
The original program enrolled 3,234 adults at high risk of developing diabetes. Participants were randomly assigned to intensive lifestyle intervention, metaformin or placebo for three years before entering a long-term follow-up study.<\/p>\n
Among 1,173 participants enrolled in Medicare and followed for 21 years, 82% of those in the lifestyle intervention group developed multimorbidity, compared with 85% in the metformin group and 87% in the placebo group.<\/p>\n
![\"A](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/cheerful-senior-couple-eating-salad-39559023.jpg\")
A new study showed that eating a low-fat, low-calorie diet and getting at least 150 minutes of physical activity each week is better at preventing chronic diseases. rh2010 \u2013 stock.adobe.com<\/p>\n
Researchers say that the study is especially important because efforts to prevent or slow multimorbidity have largely fallen short in real-world medicine. Once patients start accumulating multiple illnesses, it\u2019s been difficult for doctors to meaningfully stop that progression, since the conditions tend to feed into each other over time.<\/p>\n
That challenge is even more pressing given the rise of what the study authors referred to as \u201chigh-cost condition dyads,\u201d combinations of chronic diseases such as heart failure and kidney disease, or cancer paired with mental health conditions, which make up a disproportionate share of healthcare spending and complexity. <\/p>\n
Against that backdrop, the study\u2019s authors turned to metformin and lifestyle intervention because both have already been shown to reduce the risk of type 2 diabetes in high-risk patients.<\/p>\n
The question was whether either approach could also extend those benefits further and blunt long-term multimorbidity.<\/p>\n