Metformin Shows Surprising Potential Against Inflammation Induced by the SARS-CoV-2 Spike Protein
Nikhil Prasad Fact checked by:Thailand Medical News Team Sep 14, 2025 2 hours, 2 minutes ago
Medical News: Researchers from the College of Health Sciences, University of Memphis, Tennessee, USA conducted a new study to understand how metformin, a common diabetes drug, may help in fighting COVID-19 related inflammation. Severe COVID-19 is often driven by an uncontrolled immune reaction in the lungs, where immune cells like monocytes and macrophages become overactive and flood the body with inflammatory signals. This can make the disease far more dangerous and even fatal. According to this
Medical News report, scientists wanted to uncover exactly how metformin interferes with this damaging process.
What Researchers Did
The team collected blood samples from 17 healthy young adults and isolated their monocytes, a type of white blood cell. These cells were then exposed in the lab to the spike protein subunit 1 of SARS-CoV-2, the same viral feature responsible for triggering much of the immune response. Normally, this spike protein drives the monocytes into a hyperactive state, ramping up energy use and releasing inflammatory molecules such as IL-6, IL-10, TNF, and IL-1B. But when the cells were pre-treated with metformin, the researchers observed a strong dampening of this reaction.
Key Findings
The results showed that:
-Metformin suppressed energy overdrive – it reduced the spike protein’s ability to push monocytes into an excessive glycolytic state (where cells burn glucose rapidly to fuel inflammation).
-Inflammatory gene expression dropped – IL-6 and IL-10 levels were significantly lowered, while TNF levels were somewhat reduced but not fully. IL-1B did not change.
-Metabolic balance improved – mitochondrial respiration, another sign of immune cell overactivation, was also suppressed by metformin.
Interestingly, when scientists tried to mimic metformin’s effects by blocking mitochondrial complex I with another drug or scavenging reactive oxygen species, the protective effects did not appear. However, activating AMPK, a key energy-sensing enzyme in cells, showed a pattern similar to metformin, suggesting this pathway may be central to how the drug works.
Why This Matters
These findings add to growing evidence that metformin is more than just a diabetes medication. It may help calm dangerous immune storms triggered by COVID-19, lowering the risk of severe outcomes. While the exact mechanisms are still debated, the fact that AMPK activation mirrored metformin’s effects indicates a promising lead for future therapies. The study also highlights that a cheap and widely available drug could offer unexpected benefits in managing pandemics and other inflammatory conditions.
Final Thoughts
The study reminds us that sometimes existing medicines can offer new hope against emerging health threats. More research is needed to fully understand how metformin works inside immune cells, but this study provides strong evidence that it plays a role in taming COVID-19’s inflammatory damage. If proven in larger trials, metformin could become an affordable tool not just for diabetes, but also for reducing risks in viral infections that trigger excessive immune responses.
The study findings were published on a preprint server and are currently being peer reviewed.<
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https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2025.09.12.675877v1
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Medical News.
Read Also:
https://www.thailandmedical.news/news/metformin-might-hold-the-key-in-reducing-covid-19-risk-in-diabetics
https://www.thailandmedical.news/news/metformin-as-a-potential-antiviral
https://www.thailandmedical.news/news/how-sars-cov-2-spike-protein-triggers-neurodegenerative-diseases-and-the-potential-of-metformin-as-a-therapeutic-remedy
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