One of the most studied medications there is.
What metformin is, and what tends to come up at the appointment.
Education and visit preparation. Ojava does not prescribe, dose, adjust medication, or decide whether anything here applies to you.
- HbA1c
- Fasting glucose
- Kidney function
- Vitamin B12
- Liver enzymes
Education, and preparation. That is all.
This page explains what a class of medication is and which markers tend to come up in the conversation, so you can walk into your own appointment with better questions. Your clinician and your pharmacist decide everything else.
- No prescription, no dose, and no schedule.
- No advice to start, stop or change anything.
- No judgement about whether a medication is working for you.
What the class is
Decades of use,a long paper trail
Metformin has been prescribed for longer than most people reading this have been alive, which means the literature around it is unusually deep. That is worth knowing before an appointment, because it changes the kind of question that is useful to ask.
Drug class
A biguanide. It is the only medication in that class in common use, and it appears under several product names as well as inside combination tablets.
What it does
It reduces the amount of glucose the liver produces and affects how the body responds to insulin. It works differently from medications that push the pancreas to release more insulin.
Approved uses
Type 2 diabetes management. It is also widely used to lower diabetes risk in prediabetes, and that use is off-label rather than an approved indication, which is a distinction worth raising.
What comes up
The markers peopletend to bring along
These are the results that often sit near this class of medication in a conversation. Ojava keeps whichever of them are in your own record together, in date order, so the question you ask is about your history rather than a general one.
Hemoglobin A1c
Reflects average blood glucose over roughly three months. It is one of the standing reference points in a conversation about glucose regulation.
Fasting glucose
A single blood sugar reading taken before eating. It describes a different moment than A1c does, which is why both often appear in the same panel.
Kidney function
Creatinine and eGFR describe how well the kidneys are filtering. They show up in most routine panels and are a common thing to ask about.
Vitamin B12
A vitamin measured in an ordinary blood test. It comes up often enough in this conversation to be worth having a question ready about.
Liver enzymes
ALT and AST reflect liver activity. Some clinicians include them in the broader picture, which is a reasonable thing to ask about.
Weight and BMI
Body weight, and weight relative to height. Many people track these for their own reasons, and they frequently come up in this conversation.
No target value, no reference band and no reading of whether a medication is working appears on this page. Ojava organizes what you already have and explains what a marker measures. Interpreting your own results is a conversation for your clinician.
Before the visit
Walk in withthe specific question
A good appointment usually turns on one precise question. These are the ones worth having written down, and the record that makes each of them specific.
- What is this medication meant to do for someone in my situation?
- Which of my results would you want to look at, and how often?
- What side effects are worth telling you about, and how quickly?
- Are there interactions with anything else on my list, including supplements?
- What would make you want to revisit this decision?
- Who should I contact between visits, and about what?
What your record already holds
- Your medication list, with the dates you noted for each entry.
- A1c, fasting glucose and kidney results in date order, from panels you accepted.
- Your own notes about how you have felt, kept next to the timeline rather than in a separate app.
- The food you logged and the training you did, in the same record as the results.
Sources
What this page stands on.
Official labelling and professional-society guidance, linked so you can read the original rather than take a summary on trust.
DailyMed Drug Labeling
U.S. National Library of Medicine, 2026
Supports official label-backed medication education. Label mentions are not the same as patient-specific safety clearance.
Drug Interactions: What You Should Know
U.S. Food and Drug Administration, 2013
Supports consumer education around drug-drug, drug-food, supplement, and condition interactions. It does not make Ojava a comprehensive interaction checker.
Mixing Medications and Dietary Supplements Can Endanger Your Health
U.S. Food and Drug Administration, 2022
Supports asking a clinician or pharmacist about supplement and medication combinations instead of treating a missing match as safe.
American Geriatrics Society 2023 updated AGS Beers Criteria for potentially inappropriate medication use in older adults
American Geriatrics Society Beers Criteria Update Expert Panel, 2023
Supports medication-review caution and the idea that certain medication risks depend on age, condition, kidney function, and drug-drug context. It is not a patient-specific safety clearance.
STOPP/START criteria for potentially inappropriate prescribing in older people: version 3
O Mahony, Cherubini, Guiteras, et al., 2023
Supports older-adult medication-review prompts around potentially inappropriate prescriptions and possible prescribing omissions. Ojava does not apply the criteria or classify a patient-specific issue.
Deprescribing Guidelines and Algorithms
Deprescribing.org, 2026
Supports deprescribing conversation preparation with a clinician or pharmacist. Ojava does not stop, taper, substitute, or recommend medication changes.
DailyMed Metformin Hydrochloride Drug Labels
DailyMed, U.S. National Library of Medicine, 2026
Supports official-label medication education for metformin. It does not clear patient-specific safety, dosing, or individual treatment.
Standards of Care in Diabetes, 2026
American Diabetes Association Professional Practice Committee, 2026
Supports diabetes-care education around A1c, glucose, kidney context, medication review, and clinician-led decisions. Ojava does not diagnose or treat diabetes.
Bring the record,not just the question
Keep your metformin history, your own results and your notes in one place, and the next appointment starts from what actually happened rather than from memory.
Your list, your notes
What you take and what you have noticed, held together with the results and documents that sit near them.
In date order
Results line up chronologically, so a question about a change is asked about a real change rather than an impression.
The decision stays with care
Prescribing, dosing, refills, and any change at all remain with your licensed clinician or pharmacist.
This is general educational information about a class of medication, not medical advice, a prescription, or a recommendation. Ojava does not diagnose, prescribe, dose, adjust medication, order labs, or replace your clinician.