A Common Diabetes Drug May Prevent Long COVID in Some People

A Common Diabetes Drug May Prevent Long COVID in Some People The drug metformin cut long COVID risk by 41 percent in both people who were overweight and those with obesity. But treatments remain elusive Lucy Tu Scientific American

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The researchers say their study, which was published this month in the Lancet Infectious Diseases, is the first placebo-controlled, randomized clinical trial to investigate long COVID incidence after the use of metformin, which is typically used to lower blood sugar in people with type 2 diabetes. More than 1,100 study participants, all of whom were overweight or had obesity, were randomly assigned to one of six groups that received various combinations of metformin, the antiparasitic drug ivermectin, the antidepressant drug fluvoxamine or a placebo. Only 6.3 percent of study participants who took metformin were diagnosed with long COVID within 300 days of their initial illness, compared with 10.4 percent of participants taking a placebo. Neither ivermectin nor fluvoxamine reduced the risk of long COVID.

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