Type 2 Diabetics Taking Metformin Up to 21% Lower Risk of Long Covid or Death
Additional research results have been released showing that metformin, a widely used diabetes treatment, reduces the risk of long-term COVID-19 (long COVID). This is based on a paper by researchers at the University of Minnesota in the United States published in the international academic journal Diabetes Care, as reported by the health and medical webzine Health Day on the 19th (local time).
Long COVID refers to symptoms such as chronic fatigue, brain fog, and chest pain that persist for weeks or months after a COVID-19 infection. It is estimated that millions of Americans are still suffering from Long COVID.
In a paper published in the journal Lancet Infectious Diseases last June, researchers at the University of Minnesota reported that overweight or obese people who took metformin immediately after COVID-19 infection were 41% less likely to develop long-COVID symptoms. At the time, the lead author of the paper, Professor Carolyn Bramante of the University of Minnesota School of Medicine, explained, “Metformin has clinical benefits when used as an outpatient treatment for COVID-19, and it is available worldwide, inexpensive, and safe.”
Researchers led by Professor Steven Johnson of the Institute for Health Informatics (IHI) at the University of Minnesota wanted to see if the same benefits were seen in people with type 2 diabetes who took metformin, so they collected data from about 76,000 Americans who took metformin for type 2 diabetes.
The researchers compared their long-COVID diagnosis rates with a control group of 13,000 diabetic patients who were not taking metformin. They found that people who took metformin were up to 21% less likely to develop long-COVID or die within six months of being infected with COVID-19.
How could metformin prevent the worst effects of COVID-19? The National Institutes of Health (NIH), which funded the study, said, “Scientists are not sure how metformin prevents long-COVID, but they speculate that it may involve several mechanisms: reducing inflammation, lowering virus levels, and inhibiting the formation of disease-related proteins.”
The paper can be found at the following link (
Source: kormedi.com
