Fig. 1
From: Effects of metformin on atrial and ventricular arrhythmias: evidence from cell to patient
Effects of metformin on atrial arrhythmias. Atrial fibrillation, obesity, insulin resistance, and diabetes mellitus can cause atrial structural, electrical, electromechanical, and autonomic adverse remodeling. These remodelings become arrhythmogenic substrates and set out a vicious cycle known as “AF begets AF”. Metformin exerts protective effects through various mechanisms. Red arrow shows adverse effects from atrial fibrillation, obesity, insulin resistance, and diabetes. Green rectangle shows pathway that metformin blocked. Solid green arrow shows protective mechanisms of metformin directly demonstrated from the studies in Tables 1 and 2. Dotted green arrow indicates protective mechanism of metformin from other studies in the text