Common diabetes drug shown to prevent long COVID
A 14-day course of metformin, a common drug used to manage type 2 diabetes, prevents long COVID, according to a new study in The Lancet Infectious Diseases.
The promising results come from the COVID-OUT study, which looked at three readily available drugs: ivermectin, fluvoxamine, and metformin, for both COVID treatment and long-COVID prevention. All three drugs had shown antiviral properties in vivo against SARS-CoV-2, and all had been promising medical treatments for the virus, as they are cheap and safe.
Now, more than 2 years after the outpatients trial began, metformin is the only medical intervention in the study shown to prevent long COVID.