Credit: UAB
BIRMINGHAM, Ala. - Use of the diabetes drug metformin before a diagnosis of COVID-19 is associated with a threefold decrease in mortality in COVID-19 patients with Type 2 diabetes, according to a racially diverse study at the University of Alabama at Birmingham. Diabetes is a significant comorbidity for COVID-19. This beneficial effect remained, even after correcting for age, sex, race, obesity, and hypertension or chronic kidney disease and heart failure, said Anath Shalev, M.D., director of UAB s Comprehensive Diabetes Center and leader of the study. Since similar results have now been obtained in different populations from around the world including China, France and a UnitedHealthcare analysis this suggests that the observed reduction in mortality risk associated with metformin use in subjects with Type 2 diabetes and COVID-19 might be generalizable, Shalev said.
School of Medicine An unforgettable year draws to a close
How to sum up 2020? It’s been one of the most challenging, complex, confounding years in my memory, but it’s also been a clarifying year, one of immense opportunity and hope that has affirmed my faith in medicine and our school on many levels. As an institution, we were tested in ways we’ve never been before, and I’m extremely proud of the creativity, tenacity, and resilience our faculty, staff, students, and trainees demonstrated in overcoming those challenges. With the imminent arrival at UAB of the first coronavirus vaccine doses to Alabama, we may soon turn a page in the pandemic saga of 2020, but I know I’ll never forget this year and the lessons it taught us.