Metformin could be a new treatment for long COVID, reduces risk by 40%

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Key Points

Patients had to take the drug within four days of showing COVID symptoms for it to be most effective...

A study published on June 8 in the medical journal The Lancet found that patientswho received metformin when they were first diagnosed with COVID-19 had a 41% reduced risk of developing long COVID 10 months later...

The study had limitations including that it was only tested on people with overweight or obesity but it showed promise forthe drug asa crucial tool in the fight against long COVID...

First, the study only tested the drug in people between the ages of 30-85 years old with overweight and obesity; we still don't know if metformin would work for different demographics.Second, the researchers said it was more effective if participants took the drug in fewer than four days after the onset of COVID symptoms, which may not be so easy in practice for many people..

Besides showing the benefits of metformin, the study may have had another inadvertent impact: Proving that long COVID does, in fact, exist, according to to Jeremy Faust, an emergency physician at Brigham and Women's Hospital...

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