A team of University of Minnesota researchers found that metformin, a drug commonly used to treat diabetes, can decrease the amount of COVID-19 virus in the body and lower the chances of the virus coming back strongly after initial treatment. The study was published in Clinical Infectious Diseases and former KL2 scholar Carolyn Bramante, MD, is the principal investigator.
A higher viral load — the amount of virus in a person’s body — usually indicates a greater concentration of the virus, which can be important in understanding the severity of an infection and monitoring the effectiveness of treatments.
“The results of the study are important because COVID-19 continues to cause illness, both during acute infection and for months after infection,” said Dr. Bramante, an assistant professor at the U of M Medical School as well as an internist and pediatrician with M Health Fairview.
In this phase 3 randomized clinical trial, the researchers tested metformin against a placebo in 1,323 adults infected with COVID-19. The group treated with metformin had a viral load that was about four times lower than the placebo at day 10. The metformin group also had less viral rebound than the placebo group.
A computer simulator developed by U of M Medical School and College of Science and Engineering faculty accurately predicted metformin’s effectiveness against COVID-19 — helping steer the direction of the clinical trial.
Related: Dr. Bramante on the value of CTSI’s KL2 program