@erictopol Somewhat surprising you didn't mention #Metformin as one of the antiaging compounds.
Not only is it one of the most widely used *generic* drugs in the world, but it addresses one of the fastest growing pro-aging vectors i.e. excess sugars (glucose).
Unlike Rapamycin it is also cheap as chips.
@ProPublica #metformin for #diabetes and #covid is on this list.
As well as #gabapentin 600mg (so for #pain I guess? The dose people use for #menopause and #perimenopause is 300 mg as far as I know.)
Individuals with Type 2 diabetes secrete glucose into their small intestine, which gut microbiota in the large intestine consume to produce short-chain fatty acids. The rate of glucose secretion is four times higher in those who are taking metformin. Intestinal secretion of glucose was also observed in mice. Feeding of the gut microbiome with glucose is a novel observation.
Summary: https://www.eurekalert.org/news-releases/1074776
Original paper: https://www.nature.com/articles/s43856-025-00755-4
Have you seen this collection of #covid #studies re #metformin??
This is great. It was linked in Ryan McCormick’s substack.
Another study finds Metformin significantly reduces long Covid risk, and also deaths: “Metformin prescribed within a week of SARS-CoV-2 infection was associated with a 53% reduction in long COVID or death over 6 months in people without diabetes or prediabetes, according to data presented on Saturday at the Infectious Disease Week (IDWeek) 2024 Annual Meeting.” #LongCovid #metformin #Covid https://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/metformin-may-reduce-long-covid-non-diabetic-population-2024a1000ja0
"Metformin, the most widely used antidiabetic drug, has been reported to delay aging and display protective effect on attenuating progression of various aging-related diseases by impacting key hallmark events of aging, including dysregulated nutrient sensing, loss of proteostasis, mitochondrial dysfunction, altered intercellular communication, telomere attrition, genomic instability, epigenetic alterations, stem cell exhaustion and cellular senescence."
New: Want To Prevent Long Covid? Should You Take Metformin Or Paxlovid? via
@forbes
https://forbes.com/sites/judystone/2024/09/25/want-to-prevent-long-covid-should-you-take-metformin-or-paxlovid/ #LongCovid #Metformin #Paxlovid
Also can't afford Ozempic for #PCOS and diabetes prevention, or Myfembree, or Nurtec, or albuterol #rescue inhaler and nebulizer solution. I spent my last dime on medication for my brain #injury - currently can't afford the muscle relaxant I need tizandine or my regular #Metformin. I can't even afford it with the savings cards. I am going to end up dead since I can't take all the meds my doctors want me to use. I don't have a rescue inhaler that is not expired. I give up. This is a sign of death
I'm copying a public post below from an interesting Assistant Professor of Philosophy and Data Science at UNCC (not a medical doctor or psychologist).
Everything he is discussing is TENTATIVE but very interesting. I'm sending this out now because there is so little in the popular press about what can actually be done to help people with brain fog and other Long COVID symptoms. The research is still very early, and of course medical professionals should be consulted.
1) The article link from Nature Magazine describes brain damage caused by SARS-CoV-2 related to cell death and especially to synapse loss, leading to cognitive impairment.
2) The study in Bioelectric Medicine is extremely small, yet shows the potential of nicotine patches in the treatment of Long COVID symptoms including brain fog. (Another paper from the same publication also goes into why nicotine might help with Long COVID: https://bioelecmed.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s42234-023-00104-7 )
3) He then points to a study on the NIH PubMed site reporting the encouragement of synapse growth from psilocybin.
CORRECTED: 4) A comment in the discussion thread also links to a British Medical Journal article on a Lancet Infectious Diseases study about Metformin lowering the risk of developing Long COVID ( https://www.bmj.com/content/381/bmj.p1306 )
(ORIGINAL WRONG VERSION: 4) A comment in the discussion thread also links to a British Medical Journal article on Metformin improving Long COVID symptoms)
There's further speculation in the discussion thread that other psychoactive substances might be helpful. There are perhaps AI bots in the discussion thread discussing psilocybin microdosing, so be aware of that and maybe not get excited that so many "people" are discussing it.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
From: https://ourislandgeorgia.net/@Wolven/111412769611401616
Dr. Damien P. Williams
@Wolven
…HUH. Long-COVID destroys synapses, and is a major contributor to the brainfog. https://www.nature.com/articles/s41380-022-01786-2
This goes some way to shining a light on the promising results they've been seeing in testing nicotine patches as treatment for long covid: nicotine effects synapse formation and receptivity (tests using patches because they don't habit-form and aren't, y'know, SMOKE [https://bioelecmed.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s42234-023-00104-7]).
But what's super interesting to me is that another thing that's also been shown to encourage synapse growth? Is psilocybin.
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/34228959/
From: https://ourislandgeorgia.net/@Wolven/111412769611401616
~~~
#psychology #counseling #socialwork #psychotherapy #research @psychotherapist @psychology @socialpsych @socialwork #Vaccines #COVID #longcovid #science #medicine #hospital #brainfog #sarscov2 #metformin #nicotine #nicotinepatch #psilocybin
I started taking metformin recently, to help manage my weight. If you take any medication to help manage your weight, you're not doing anything wrong, and you're trying multiple avenues to take care of your health. Heck, biohacking is kind of fun. 
So I'm a type 2 diabetic and take metformin. Downside - magnesium deficiency manifesting itself as anxiety, brain fog, fatigue, depression. I was already taking magnesium citrate before bed (that took care of the anxiety) and only recently started taking some during the day, which took care of that brain fuzziness and fatigue to a noticeable degree.
So if you take metformin, have your magnesium levels checked.
Outpatient treatment with Metformin for Covid reduces Long Covid by 41%
“Outpatient treatment with metformin reduced long COVID incidence by about 41%, with an absolute reduction of 4·1%, compared with placebo. Metformin has clinical benefits when used as outpatient treatment for COVID-19 and is globally available, low-cost, and safe.”
https://www.thelancet.com/journals/laninf/article/PIIS1473-3099(23)00299-2/fulltext
Reappraisal of metformin efficacy in the treatment of type 2 diabetes: a meta-analysis of randomised controlled trials
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/22509138/
“Although #metformin is considered the gold standard, its benefit/risk ratio remains uncertain. We cannot exclude a 25% reduction or a 31% increase in all-cause mortality. We cannot exclude a 33% reduction or a 64% increase in cardiovascular mortality. Further studies are needed to clarify this situation.”
“Older treatments, including #insulin, do not affect #LongTermOutcomes. In what might result in a shake-up in our approach to type 2 #diabetes, #metformin was not found to be more effective than standard treatment to prevent important outcomes, which echoes previous findings and may cause it to be removed as a cornerstone of treatment”
Common diabetes drug (metformin) shown to prevent long COVID
https://www.cidrap.umn.edu/covid-19/common-diabetes-drug-shown-prevent-long-covid
A 14-day course of metformin, a common drug used to manage type 2 diabetes, prevents long COVID, according to a new study in The Lancet Infectious Diseases.
* Paper (Lancet, reputable): https://www.thelancet.com/journals/laninf/article/PIIS1473-3099(23)00299-2/fulltext
* discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36350280
* [Wikipedia]
** The Lancet: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Lancet
** Metformin: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metformin
https://www.thelancet.com/journals/laninf/article/PIIS1473-3099(23)00355-9/fulltext
“First, to our knowledge, this is the first high-quality evidence from a randomised controlled trial to show that the incidence of #longCOVID can be reduced by a medical intervention, #metformin—an inexpensive treatment with which clinicians have ample experience.
https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=4375620 “A 42% relative decrease and 4.3% absolute decrease in the Long COVID incidence occurred in participants who received early outpatient COVID-19 treatment with metformin compared to exact-matching placebo.”
#LongCOVID #Covid19 #Metformin
