Yong Xu

New Capabilities

As of May 2026: Active researcher in hypothalamic neuroscience

More than 150 million people take metformin every year to manage Type 2 diabetes. Doctors prescribed it starting in 1957, and for most of that time, assumed it worked primarily in the liver and gut. A Baylor team found that at clinically relevant low doses, the drug deactivates Rap1 in the ventromedial hypothalamus—a brain region controlling metabolism.

Updated May 30