Fig 1: (a) Boxplots showing EPCAM levels in relation to metformin medication in the main study. Boxes represent median and the first and third quartiles of the data. (b) To validate the finding, plasma EPCAM was measured with ELISA in a separate cohort of 22 metformin-treated subjects and 44 non-treated controls that were matched according to age, sex, BMI and HbA1c. The metformin-treated subjects had significantly lower EPCAM levels than the controls (p-value=0.001 [Mann-Whitney U test, 1-sided], n = 66).