A new study has revealed that a century-old diabetes drug can help prevent corona-risk patients from having severe outcomes after infection, as a metformin-containing diabetes drug reduced the patient’s risk of corona death. 44% in one group of patients. they were taking medications when they contracted the coronavirus, according to Health.
The results showed that diabetic patients who eat metformin They were 50% less likely to receive artificial respiration because they had battled the infection.
Principal investigator Dr. Caroline Bramante, assistant professor at the University of Minnesota College of Medicine, USA, said these findings are in line with previous studies and clinical experience that showed metformin’s protective effects against Corona infection . of severe symptoms.” You indicated that metformin was first discovered in the early 1920s.
“Some of the first published articles on metformin were in the context of influenza and metformin prevention or its association with less severe influenza in the 1940s and 1950s,” Bramante said.
The United States Food and Drug Administration approved metformin as a diabetes drug in 1994. The drug helps diabetics by reducing the liver’s ability to release blood glucose from its stores.
Bramante said that metformin also appears to have antiviral and anti-inflammatory effects, so in 2010 researchers began testing it against other viruses such as Zika and hepatitis C, and the researchers concluded that this made metformin a natural candidate for the use in the treatment of COVID-19.
A clinical study found that metformin reduced the odds of emergency department visits, hospitalization, or death from COVID-19 in overweight or obese patients by more than 40%, and by more than 50% when prescribed early onset. of symptoms, according to findings published in the New England Journal of Medicine.
Bramante said: ‘What we saw in our study is that the earlier someone started using metformin, the better it worked at preventing severe symptoms of COVID-19. So, in people who started it within less than four days of symptoms, had the greatest effect in preventing emergency visits, hospital admissions and death from corona.
The new study included more than 6,600 patients with type 2 diabetes who contracted the Corona virus, and the research team compared the performance of diabetics taking metformin versus other prescribed diabetes medications.
Researchers found that people taking metformin had a lower risk of death or mechanical ventilation than those taking a class of diabetes drugs called sulfonylureas.
