Common diabetes drug linked to lower rate of long COVID

cidrap.umn.edu ^ | 09/18/2024 | Stephanie Soucheray, MA

[ChicagoConservative27]

Metformin is the most common type 2 diabetes drug prescribed to millions of American each year, and a new study from researchers at the National Institutes of Health (NIH) published in Diabetes Care suggests the drug can lower the risk of developing long COVID, or post-acute sequelae of SARS-CoV-2 infection (PASC), in diabetics.

Metformin lowers blood sugar and is most commonly prescribed as a first-line treatment for type 2 diabetes. The drug also is prescribed off-label for weight loss and other metabolic conditions.

The new findings come from the ongoing RECOVER trial and build on results seen in a 2023 trial, which showed metformin cuts the risk of long COVID by 40% in 1,300 adults who were overweight or obesity. Those participants were not diabetic.

75,000 adults studied In the new study, the authors wanted to see if that effect was still seen in those taking metformin for diabetes. Previous studies have shown that people with type 2 diabetes are more at risk for developing long COVID

The investigators used electronic health records from two databases to compare 75,996 adults taking metformin for their type 2 diabetes to 13,336 records from patients who were not taking metformin but were using other types of diabetes medicine. They analyzed data from 51,385 adults from the N3C data set and 37,947 adults from the PCORnet data set.

Outcomes were long COVID diagnosis or death within 6 months of a confirmed COVID-19 infection, because death precludes a diagnosis of PASC, the authors explained.

Overall, PASC diagnoses were seen in 1.7% of patients in the N3C of the data set and 1.3% in the PCORnet set.

[maddog55]

Long covid is actually long vaccine.

[ransomnote]

I didn't know the FDA has no authority to issue a mandatory recall due to manufacturing problems, and that they don't seem to want that authority. Makes sense - they wouldn't want to recall the Covid 'vax'.

In 2020 there was a recall of certain Metaformin products.

I thought this quote was interesting:

"A few months ago, Singapore, Canada and Switzerland recalled several metformin products from pharmacy shelves because regulators became aware of contamination with the probable carcinogen NDMA. Now, the FDA is notifying health professionals that metformin from five manufacturers may also be tainted. Those companies include Actavis, Amneal, Apotex, Lupin and Marksans.

At the time of this writing only Amneal and Apotex have announced recalls of their extended-release metformin formulations. Most health professionals and patients do not realize that in the United States the FDA has no authority to issue a mandatory recall due to manufacturing problems. As far as we can tell, the agency does not want this authority, which we find astonishing."

https://www.peoplespharmacy.com/articles/which-metformin-is-ok-and-which-is-on-the-fdas-problem-list#:~:text=The%20online%20pharmacy%20Valisure%20recently%20published