In a new study published in The Lancet Infectious Diseases, a team of University of Minnesota researchers found that metformin, a drug commonly used to treat diabetes, prevents the development of long COVID. Former KL2 scholar Carolyn Bramante, MD, is the principal investigator.
The study, called COVID-OUT, investigated if early outpatient COVID-19 treatment with metformin, ivermectin, or fluvoxamine could prevent long COVID.
The large, placebo-controlled randomized clinical trial enrolled volunteers across the U.S. and found those who received metformin were more than 40 percent less likely to develop long COVID than those who received can identical-looking placebo.
“This long-term outcome from a randomized trial is high-quality evidence that metformin prevents harm from the SARS-CoV-2 virus,” says Dr. Bramante. Last summer, the New England Journal of Medicine published the results of another clinical trial from Dr. Bramante suggesting that metformin is effective at reducing odds of serious outcomes for COVID-19 patients seeking early treatment.