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Metformin shown to prevent long Covid

cidrap.umn.edu

81–90 of 195 posts

Re: Metformin shown to prevent long Covid

#81
Would these treatments work for other long-term viral illnesses?

I know Covid is getting the attention, but many have had long-term health effects from mono, influenza, and other viral illnesses. I was extremely sick for over a year and believe I may have had a severe Vitamin D deficiency at the time (it only got better once I finally crawled out of the house).

Re: Metformin shown to prevent long Covid

#82

One thing metformin does is occasionally encourage cells to burn excess energy rather than store it. This may lead to extra cellular repair processes. I heard cancer rates were lower in metformin users and could extend life. Had my doc prescribe it to me 5 or so years ago. I take it daily. There were mild GI side effects and weight loss at first, but my body adjusted and now it is BAU. Haven't changed my lifestyle, c…

Can I ask what dose you take, and also whether it has caused any issues with hypoglycemia?

Re: Metformin shown to prevent long Covid

#83
post #71

TLDR: > By day 300 of follow-up, 93 (8.3%) of 1,126 participants said they had received a diagnosis of long COVID by a provider. The cumulative incidence of long COVID by day 300 in those who took a 14-day course of metformin was 6.3% (95% confidence interval [CI], 4.2 to 8.2) compared to 10.4% (7.8 to 12.9) in the placebo group, or 39.4% lower. Interestingly, half of the participants in the study (which took place s…

Multiple-vaccinated or has had Covid? Why only those two options? I and a big portion of my circle is unvaccinated, healthy and didn't have Covid.

Unless you've been continually tested every 2 weeks for the past 3 years you might very well have had it asymptomatically

Re: Metformin shown to prevent long Covid

#84
post #79

Does it help those with long Covid?

The claim is that metformin greatly reduces viral load. If your long COVID is caused by the virus continuing to linger on 8n some tissues, as there is evidence might be the case for s9me patience, then it might. But if your long COVID is caused by microclots or lung scarring or other physiological damage caused by COVID, then no.

Makes sense. I found this too in a science journal:

> The exact pathophysiology of long COVID is unknown but is likely to be multifactorial, including the inflammatory cascade during acute infection and persistent viral replication. Mechanistic in-silico modelling predicts that translation of SARS-CoV-2 viral proteins is a particularly sensitive target for inhibition of viral replication, and previous studies have shown that metformin is capable of suppressing protein translation via mammalian target of rapamycin (mTOR) inhibition

https://www.science.org/content/blog-post/long-covid-shows-c...

Re: Metformin shown to prevent long Covid

#85

TLDR: > By day 300 of follow-up, 93 (8.3%) of 1,126 participants said they had received a diagnosis of long COVID by a provider. The cumulative incidence of long COVID by day 300 in those who took a 14-day course of metformin was 6.3% (95% confidence interval [CI], 4.2 to 8.2) compared to 10.4% (7.8 to 12.9) in the placebo group, or 39.4% lower. Interestingly, half of the participants in the study (which took place s…

If the inconvenience of having a vaccine are a turn-off for this demographic, I can’t imagine that GI distress (i.e. urgency) associated with metformin would be tolerable either.

Re: Metformin shown to prevent long Covid

#86

Would these treatments work for other long-term viral illnesses? I know Covid is getting the attention, but many have had long-term health effects from mono, influenza, and other viral illnesses. I was extremely sick for over a year and believe I may have had a severe Vitamin D deficiency at the time (it only got better once I finally crawled out of the house).

Possible.

> It has to be noted that metformin has pleitropic effects that have shown up with a number of diseases. That simultaneously gives you some belief that the drug really could be working here too, while making the actual mechanism hard to pick out.

https://www.science.org/content/blog-post/long-covid-shows-c...

Re: Metformin shown to prevent long Covid

#87
post #76
post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A big portion? Wow. I thought no-one escaped omicron BA.2

Can't say too much about it. Didn't really follow the whole Covid discussion and just continued my lifestyle. Eating healthy (fresh self-made food), doing sports and looking after a good mental state. Family and my circle did the same. Friends who have been vaccinated got Covid several times. But are also good now... My grandmom (89 years), also unvaccinated, didn't get Covid. Her sister got it (vaccinated). Both hea…

To be fair, Covid was never all that dangerous (in a statistical sense) for relatively young, relatively healthy people.

Of course, in the beginning that wasn't clear. And you might still want to get vaccinated, to decrease the likelihood of you passing the virus to your older relatives.

Re: Metformin shown to prevent long Covid

#88
post #23

In my extended network of 1000+ people, I've heard of 2 that may have "long covid". Are people's experiences different?

I bet you don’t hear from many people who don’t want to disclose their health too or are afraid of their livelihood doing so.

Re: Metformin shown to prevent long Covid

#90
post #29

TLDR: > By day 300 of follow-up, 93 (8.3%) of 1,126 participants said they had received a diagnosis of long COVID by a provider. The cumulative incidence of long COVID by day 300 in those who took a 14-day course of metformin was 6.3% (95% confidence interval [CI], 4.2 to 8.2) compared to 10.4% (7.8 to 12.9) in the placebo group, or 39.4% lower. Interestingly, half of the participants in the study (which took place s…

Derek Lowe has a good discussion as well: https://www.science.org/content/blog-post/long-covid-shows-c... One thing to point out--this study provides the first really solid evidence that Long Covid actually exists. From Derek Lowe: "An overarching point, though, is made in a valuable commentary in the same issue of the Lancet by Jeremy Samuel Faust: this effect against a placebo control really shows us that there is…

I don't get this conclusion. Couldn't they be treating diabetes itself in the non-placebo population?
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