A new study revealed that a century-old diabetes drug may help prevent corona patients at risk from experiencing severe results after infection, as a drug containing metformin for diabetes reduced the risk of death from corona by 44% in a group of patients. Sugars who were taking medication 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 fought off the Corona infection.
Principal researcher Dr. Caroline Bramante, assistant professor at the University of Minnesota College of Medicine, USA, said that these results are in line with previous studies and clinical experience that showed the protective effects of metformin against Corona. Corona infection, as well as prevention of severe symptoms.” She indicated that metformin was first discovered in the early 1920s.
“Some of the first published articles on metformin were in the context of influenza prevention and metformin or its association with less severe influenza back in the 1940s and 1950s,” Bramante said.
The US Food and Drug Administration approved metformin as a diabetes drug in 1994. The drug helps diabetics by reducing the ability of the liver to release glucose into the blood from its stores.
Bramante said 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 use in treating COVID-19.
A clinical trial found that metformin reduced the odds of emergency department visits, hospitalization, or death from COVID-19 in patients who were overweight or obese by more than 40%, and more than 50% if prescribed early in the onset of symptoms, according to findings published in New England Journal of Medicine.
Bramante said: “What we saw in our trial is that the earlier someone started using metformin, the better it worked in preventing severe COVID-19 symptoms. So in individuals who started it within less than four days of symptoms, they 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 how well diabetics taking metformin performed compared to other prescribed diabetes drugs.
Researchers found that people taking metformin had a lower risk of death or mechanical ventilation compared to those taking a class of diabetes medications called sulfonylureas.