In a new study published in The study, called COVID-OUT, investigated if early outpatient
“The results of this study are important because long COVID can have a significant impact on people’s lives,” said Carolyn Bramante, MD, principal investigator and an assistant professor at the U of M Medical School. “Metformin is an inexpensive, safe and widely available drug, and its use as a preventive measure could have significant public health implications.”
This was a large, placebo-controlled randomized clinical trial that enrolled volunteers across the United States. The study found:
- Those who received metformin were more than 40% less likely to develop long COVID than those who received an identical-looking placebo.
- For participants who started metformin less than four days after their COVID symptoms started, metformin decreased the risk of long COVID by 63%.
- The effect was consistent across different demographic populations of volunteers who participated and across multiple viral variants, including the Omicron variant.
- Ivermectin and fluvoxamine did not prevent long COVID.
The study included more than 1,200 participants who were randomly chosen to receive either metformin or placebo, and an additional subset received ivermectin, fluvoxamine or their placebos. Participants were between 30 and 85 years old who qualified as overweight or obese. Over 1,100 of the participants reported on their symptoms for up to 10 months after their initial COVID-19 diagnosis.
“This long-term outcome from a randomized trial is high-quality evidence that metformin prevents harm from the
Metformin’s ability to stop the virus was predicted by a simulator developed by U of M Medical School and College of Science and Engineering Biomedical Engineering faculty. The model has been highly accurate to date, successfully predicting, among others, the failure of DOI: 10.1016/S1473-3099(23)00299-2
The University of Minnesota Medical School, School of Public Health, College of Science and Engineering and M Health Fairview served as the lead site. The trial was also conducted at
Funding was provided by the Parsemus Foundation, Rainwater Charitable Foundation, Fast Grants, and the United Health Foundation. This research was also supported by the