Metaformin and elevated heart rates.

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Chris Hobson

Chris Hobson

Well-Known Member
Relationship to Diabetes
Type 2
I've just had my review and had a disappointing HbA1c score of 61. So, in addition to linagiptin I am now taking a small dose of slow release metaformin. I currently swim around three times per week, sometimes I swim at a leisurely pace, other times I push on hard for a good time or incorporate some sprints in a pyramid set. Swimming at a slowish pace would normally have produced an average heart rate of around 123bpm and a maximum of around 144bpm. Today, three days into my new meds, a slow swim has produced an average of 150bpm and a maximum of 175bpm. These is the kind of numbers that I would expect to get from a much more vigorous swim. There isn't any info about this on the leaflet that came with the meds. Has anyone else experienced this and is it anything to be concerned about?
 
Interesting. I've recently stopped my 500mg of Metformin, and I'm seeing a lower heart rate.
In the past when I've stopped it briefly, I've noticed the same thing, so I did a bit of Googling and found that Metformin is associated with a rise in heart rate, but has no effect on blood pressure:

pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov

[Metformin and changes in blood pressure and heart rate in lean patients with polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS)--preliminary study] - PubMed

Treatment with metformin in patients with PCOS and normal lean leads to lower blood pressure and increases the frequency of heart rate.
pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov

I mentioned this to the nurse last time I saw her, and she was unaware of this side effect.

Sorry to hear your result was disappointing. :-(
 
Thanks for the link, that was interesting.
Yes it was disappointing that my glucose levels had gone up but not a total surprise. It is now almost eleven years since my diagnosis. I've used linagliptin on and off during that time and it is known to lose effectiveness over time. In the past I have kept my levels down by doing lots of exercise and keeping the weight off. As I've got older this has become more difficult to keep up so it was slightly to be expected.
 
I'm just re-visited this thread because, now that I've been taking metaformin for a few months, my heart rate while swimming seems to be slightly lower than I would have expected. I have been seeing how far I can swim in an hour, I usually manage 2.2K. My sports watch has been recording a fairly flat rate of about 120bpm and this isn't really providing any kind of decent cardio workout. Today I did a pyramid set which produced peaks around 150bpm which is much better. There is often a woman in the next lane ploughing up and down the pool as regularly as clockwork. My pace for a flat out fifty metre sprint is just her regular going along pace.
 
What sports watch do you use?
I’m an Apple fan so use an Apple Watch 8 and their latest watch OS. That now comes with an intensity function which logs intensity vs a rolling 7 and 28 day average. It’s using a mix of metrics including HR but it does it all automatically.
As I’m just recently back at the gym it’s been throwing up warnings about HR being excessive etc and checking that I’m actually exercising lol
What’s been useful is calibrating the Apple Watch vs the cardio equipment vs the HR sensor band. Generally the watch and cardio are within 2bpm of each other whereas the sensor band has varied as much as 25bpm either way. So trust your own instincts about your HR. And keep up the good work!


Oh and dropping pounds or keeping them off is certainly more difficult as the years ratchet up!
 
I have a Garmin Fenix. It seems to do HR pretty well, I sometimes check by feeling the pulse in my neck for six seconds and then multiplying by ten. It counts pool lengths really accurately too. Very rarely it hands out a freeby which doesn't usually matter but one time I finished my swim and it flagged up "New Record". On checking what new PB I had achieved I found that I had swam a hundred metres in forty-eight seconds. Did my watch miscount or am I genuinely a world class swimmer?

On the subject of keeping weight off. My weight stayed at 75 kilos for years when I was younger and very active. In my forties and early fifties I became a bit more sedentary and I gradually crept up to the high eighties. After my diagnosis, mid fifties, I got back into shape and my weight stabilised at 75 kilos again. In 2017 I did several triathlons including a 140.6 and several running events including a marathon, my weight went down to the high sixties. In 2022 I swam 500 miles and again my weight went down to under 70 kilos, this despite eating a whole 10" pizza after just about every swim session. Now at age 66 I seem to have stabilised at around 77 kilos so not too bad.
 
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