Want To Prevent Long Covid? Should You Take Metformin Or Paxlovid?

Published by: Forbes
Published on: September 25, 2024
By Judy Stone

Previously, I wrote about Paxlovid being underprescribed for treating acute Covid in patients at high risk for serious illness. The FDA granted an Emergency Use Authorization based on data showing that “Paxlovid significantly reduced the proportion of people with Covid-19 related hospitalization or death” by 88% compared to placebo.

In unvaccinated people, Paxlovid was also associated with a 26% lower risk of long Covid in a study by Ziyad Al-Aly.

The data on Paxlovid for those previously vaccinated is mixed. A smaller study from the University of California at San Francisco found no benefit in people who had been previously vaccinated.

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metformin

Common diabetes drug lowers SARS-CoV-2 levels, clinical trial finds

Published May 3, 2024

Published by: CIDRAP
Published on: May 3, 2024
By Stephanie Soucheray

Today, researchers from the University of Minnesota published evidence that the common diabetes drug metformin decreases the amount of SARS-CoV-2 in the body and helps reduce the risk of rebound symptoms if given early in the course of non-severe illness.

The study, published in Clinical Infectious Diseases, suggests metformin may also help prevent long COVID.

The researchers tested metformin against a placebo in 999 adults infected with COVID-19. More than 50% of the study enrollees were vaccinated, and treatment took place when the Omicron variant was the most dominant strain in the United States.

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cognitive issues

COVID’s toll on the brain: new clues emerge

Published March 20, 2024

Published by: Nature
Published on: March 20, 2024
By Claudia López Lloreda

Loss of smell, headaches, memory problems: COVID-19 can bring about a troubling storm of neurological symptoms that make everyday tasks difficult. Now new research adds to the evidence that inflammation in the brain might underlie these symptoms.

Not all data point in the same direction. Some new studies suggest that SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, directly infects brain cells. Those findings bolster the hypothesis that direct infection contributes to COVID-19-related brain problems. But the idea that brain inflammation is key has gotten fresh support: one study, for example, has identified specific brain areas prone to inflammation in people with COVID-19.

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COVID infections

What to do if you get COVID

Published January 15, 2024

Published by: Monkeys on Typewriters
Published on: January 15, 2024
By Arijit Chakravarty, T. Ryan Gregory

That moment you’ve been dreading has arrived (perhaps not for the first time). You or someone in your household woke up with a sore throat maybe, or a nagging cough, and you did the swab. Double red line. Dammit.

What to do now? “Pax and relax”? Sit it out and hope for the best? Go about your normal business (as an increasingly alarming number of “experts” seem to be advising)? Is it really all down to a matter of good luck, good genes and good health? Not really. The available science says that there are differences in outcomes for people based on the choices they make after they get COVID, provided they move quickly.

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long COVID

A Common Diabetes Drug May Prevent Long COVID in Some People

Published June 22, 2023

Published by: Scientific American
Published on: June 22, 2023
By Lucy Tu

The drug metformin cut long COVID risk by 41 percent in both people who were overweight and those with obesity. But treatments remain elusive.

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metformin

Covid-19: Metformin reduces the risk of developing long term symptoms by 40%, study finds

Published June 8, 2023

Published by: BMJ
Published on: June 8, 2023
By Jacqui Wise

Metformin—a cheap, safe, and widely available diabetes drug—could reduce the incidence of long covid if given during the acute phase of covid-19, a new study indicates.

A two week course of metformin given within three days of testing positive for SARS-CoV-2 led to 40% fewer long covid diagnoses over the following 10 months compared with people who had taken placebo, according to a randomised controlled trial.

Tag: metformin