- Researchers evaluated whether a common diabetes medication, metformin, can prevent long COVID.
- They found that metformin can reduce long COVID diagnoses by 40%.
- Further studies are needed to know if these findings apply to the general population.
Long COVID is characterized by ongoing health problems that occur after a COVID-19 diagnosis, and which cannot be explained by other factors.
Symptoms can last for weeks, months, or years. More than 200
Several hypotheses for what causes long COVID have been suggested. However, mechanistic studies are at an early stage. Methods for treating or preventing the condition are also early in development.
Currently, the
Methods to prevent long COVID after contracting COVID-19 could improve the quality of life and reduce long-term disability among patients.
Recently, researchers evaluated the potential for three common drugs to prevent long COVID.
They found that patients treated with metformin were significantly less likely than patients treated with a placebo to develop long COVID.
Metformin is a widely available diabetes medication that
The new study appears in the journal
The study was a randomized phase 3 clinical trial. The researchers enrolled 1,126 patients aged between 30 and 85 years who had COVID-19 symptoms and a positive PCR or antigen test result for this viral infection.
While the patients were not hospitalized for COVID-19, they had either overweight or obesity, putting them at a higher risk for developing…
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