Diabetes, Metabolic Syndrome and Obesity (Aug 2023)

Effects of Metformin on COVID-19 Patients with Type 2 Diabetes: A Retrospective Study

  • Guo Z,
  • Gao Y,
  • Xie E,
  • Ye Z,
  • Li Y,
  • Zhao X,
  • Shen N,
  • Zheng J

Journal volume & issue
Vol. Volume 16
pp. 2573 – 2582

Abstract

Read online

Ziyu Guo,1 Yanxiang Gao,2 Enmin Xie,3 Zixiang Ye,1 Yike Li,3 Xuecheng Zhao,2 Nan Shen,1 Jingang Zheng1– 3 1Department of Cardiology, Peking University China-Japan Friendship School of Clinical Medicine, Beijing, People’s Republic of China; 2Department of Cardiology, China-Japan Friendship Hospital, Beijing, People’s Republic of China; 3Graduate School of Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences and Peking Union Medical College, Beijing, People’s Republic of ChinaCorrespondence: Jingang Zheng, Department of Cardiology, China-Japan Friendship Hospital, Beijing, 100029, People’s Republic of China, Tel +86 18810966781, Email [email protected]: The pandemic of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) has highlighted the intricate relationship between underlying conditions and death. We designed this study to determine whether metformin therapy for type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2D) is associated with low in-hospital mortality in patients hospitalized for COVID-19.Materials and Methods: This was a retrospective study including patients with COVID-19 and T2D in Wuhan, from February 4th to April 11th, 2020. Patients were divided into two groups according to metformin exposure. The hazard ratio (HR) of COVID-19-related mortality and invasive mechanical ventilation was estimated using Cox regression.Results: There were 571 T2D patients among the 4330 confirmed COVID-19 patients. Of those patients, 241 received metformin therapy. The in-hospital mortality and invasive mechanical ventilation of metformin group was lower than non-metformin group. In the multivariate model, metformin use was linked to a decreased in-hospital mortality and invasive mechanical ventilation when compared with that of the control group (HR: 0.376 [95% CI 0.154– 0.922]; P = 0.033).Conclusion: Our study indicated that metformin therapy was associated with decreased death risk in COVID-19 patients with T2D.Keywords: COVID-19, diabetes mellitus, metformin, mortality

Keywords