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p-o·

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Both points are not true.

Participants section of the paper

> We excluded people who were already taking one of the study medications or who had already received a COVID-19 treatment with Emergency Use Authorization by the US Food and Drug Administration.

Baseline characteristics table, Medical history section

> Only 17 (1.5%) of the participants had diabetes.

How many had pre-diabetes? Type-2 is a pretty serious diagnosis above a pretty significant threshold. Long-covid as defined can be somewhat marginal in characteristic.

The paper doesn't say, but I would imagine it was very high. Googling the statistic says 1/3 of Americans have pre-diabetes.

So I guess what I'm wondering is, how do we know we are treating lingering covid rather than pre-diabetes symptoms? Pre-diabetes is not symptomless and metformin is prescribed off-label to manage those symptoms. How many pre-diabetes symptoms overlap with long-covid classification?

> The primary method for ascertaining long COVID was participant-reported receipt of a long COVID diagnosis from a medical provider. Participants were asked whether a medical provider had given them a diagnosis of long COVID in follow-up surveys on days 180, 210, 240, 270, and 300.

See the outcomes section. Also, read the paper.

Metformin also helps keep you under that threshold. Without Metformin my A1C is typically around 10 but with it I'm usually around 5. This complicates classification.

Still, ridiculously interesting.

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