Trial reportBiomedicine & pharmacotherapy = Biomedecine & pharmacotherapie2022
Treatment with metformin glycinate reduces SARS-CoV-2 viral load: An in vitro model and randomized, double-blind, Phase IIb clinical trial.
Trial report in Biomedicine & pharmacotherapy = Biomedecine & pharmacotherapie, 2022. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 30 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
30 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it, 49 citations in OpenAlex.
- Metformin for Treatment of Acute COVID-19: Systematic Review of Clinical Trial Data Against SARS-CoV-2.Diabetes care · 2023Pooled it
- Metformin and Time to Sustained Recovery in Adults With COVID-19: The ACTIV-6 Randomized Clinical Trial.JAMA internal medicine · 2025Trial
- Favorable Antiviral Effect of Metformin on SARS-CoV-2 Viral Load in a Randomized, Placebo-Controlled Clinical Trial of COVID-19.Clinical infectious diseases : an official publication of the Infectious Diseases Society of America · 2024Trial
- Outpatient treatment of COVID-19 and incidence of post-COVID-19 condition over 10 months (COVID-OUT): a multicentre, randomised, quadruple-blind, parallel-group, phase 3 trial.The Lancet. Infectious diseases · 2023Trial
- The length of hospital stay in COVID-19 patients using pre-hospital metformin at a Saudi tertiary hospital: a retrospective cohort study.BMC infectious diseases · 2026Article
- Effect of Metformin on the Risk of Post-COVID-19 Condition Among Individuals With Overweight or Obese: A Population-based Retrospective Cohort Study.Clinical infectious diseases : an official publication of the Infectious Diseases Society of America · 2026Article
- Preventing Long COVID With Metformin.Clinical infectious diseases : an official publication of the Infectious Diseases Society of America · 2026Article
- The Role of Immunosenescence and Inflammaging in the Susceptibility of Older Adults to SARS-CoV-2 Infection.Current pharmaceutical biotechnology · 2026Review
- A Perspective on the Role of Metformin in Treating Myalgic Encephalomyelitis/Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (ME/CFS) and Long COVID.ACS pharmacology & translational science · 2025Review
- Emerging uncertainty on the anti-aging potential of metformin.Ageing research reviews · 2025Review
- Metformin alleviates inflammatory response and severity rate of COVID-19 infection in elderly individuals.Scientific reports · 2025Article
- Recent advances in nutritional metabolism studies on SARS-CoV-2 infection.Infectious medicine · 2025Review
- Metformin inhibits the growth of SCLC cells by inducing autophagy and apoptosis via the suppression of EGFR and AKT signalling.Scientific reports · 2025Article
- Metformin for covid-19: systematic review and meta-analysis of randomised controlled trials.BMJ medicine · 2025Article
- Review
- Prevalent Metformin Use in Adults With Diabetes and the Incidence of Long COVID: An EHR-Based Cohort Study From the RECOVER Program.Diabetes care · 2024Article
- Impact of Antidiabetic Drugs on Clinical Outcomes of COVID-19: A Nationwide Population-Based Study.Endocrinology and metabolism (Seoul, Korea) · 2024Article
- Article
- Why Certain Repurposed Drugs Are Unlikely to Be Effective Antivirals to Treat SARS-CoV-2 Infections.Viruses · 2024Article
- A Dual Pharmacological Strategy against COVID-19: The Therapeutic Potential of Metformin and Atorvastatin.Microorganisms · 2024Review
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
14 authors at 2 institutions in 1 country.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
The health crisis caused by the new coronavirus SARS-CoV-2 highlights the need to identify new treatment strategies for this viral infection. During the past year, over 400 coronavirus disease (COVID-19) treatment patents have been registered; nevertheless, the presence of new virus variants has triggered more severe disease presentations and reduced treatment effectiveness, highlighting the need for new treatment options for the COVID-19. This study evaluates the Metformin Glycinate (MG) effect on the SARS-CoV-2 in vitro and in vivo viral load. The in vitro study was conducted in a model of Vero E6 cells, while the in vivo study was an adaptive, two-armed, randomized, prospective, longitudinal, double-blind, multicentric, and phase IIb clinical trial. Our in vitro results revealed that MG effectively inhibits viral replication after 48 h of exposure to the drug, with no cytotoxic effect in doses up to 100 µM. The effect of the MG was also tested against three variants of interest (alpha, delta, and epsilon), showing increased survival rates in cells treated with MG. These results are aligned with our clinical data, which indicates that MG treatment reduces SARS-CoV2-infected patients´ viral load in just 3.3 days and supplementary oxygen requirements compared with the control group. We expect our results can guide efforts to position MG as a therapeutic option for COVID-19 patients.
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Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the Socratic graph.