A drug commonly used to treat diabetes may have the potential to prevent and treat the life-threatening pregnancy complication pre-eclampsia, new research suggests.

With pre-eclampsia, a woman's blood pressure can reach dangerously high levels and protein is present in her urine. The condition tends to occur after 20 weeks gestation.

Currently, the only treatment is delivery of the baby so major problems arise if the condition develops early in the pregnancy, as decisions then have to be made on whether to deliver the baby prematurely.

The condition affects between 5% and 8% of all pregnant women and is a leading cause of maternal and infant death worldwide.

In recent decades, scientists have discovered that at least two toxins that are produced by the placenta are elevated in women with pre-eclampsia and these can damage endothelial cells, which are the inner coat of all blood vessels in the body.

However there are currently no drugs to reduce the production of these toxins that can be used in pregnancy.

Now, scientists from Australia have found that the drug metformin, which is used to treat diabetes, reduces the production of the two elevated toxins found in pre-eclampsia. Metformin also appears to help heal injured blood vessels.

Since metformin is safe to use during pregnancy, the scientists from Melbourne believe that clinical trials should now be initiated to test whether the drug can be used to treat women with pre-eclampsia.

Details of these findings are published in the American Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology and according to its editor, Dr Roberto Romero, they are very promising.

"Metformin appears to be the aspirin of the 21st century, because the drug has been discovered to have unexpected health benefits not only in diabetes, but also in polycystic ovarian disease and recent work has highlighted its anti-cancer properties," he commented.

He called for the systematic review of previous clinical trials in which pregnant women have been given metformin, as well as new clinical trials, in order to determine whether this simple intervention could prevent this serious pregnancy complication.