For potentially millions of people who survive a bout of COVID-19, there are punishing months of chronic symptoms to bear afterward — a syndrome known as long COVID. Now, a study shows that taking the relatively inexpensive drug metformin during a COVID-19 infection can decrease risks of developing long COVID by more than 40%, on average.
"I for one was very surprised by the results," Dr. David Boulware, an infectious disease physician-scientist at the University of Minnesota and one of the leaders of the study, told Live Science in an email. Metformin is primarily used to treat type 2 diabetes and gestational diabetes and helps the body lower blood sugar levels.
The definition of long COVID has been updated frequently and the condition's symptoms can fluctuate, making them difficult to assess, the study authors noted. In the trial, the researchers only counted long COVID cases that had been diagnosed by a medical provider following a participants' initial illness. By this criteria, 6.3% of those who received metformin after contracting COVID-19 developed long COVID, compared to 10.4% of those who received the placebo.