What is 2-DG? Is there any benefit from this? Can 2-DG become a COVID savior drug?

What is 2-DG? Is there any benefit from this? Can 2-DG become a COVID savior drug?

It was recently reported that 2-deoxy-D-glucose-19. Once approved for immediate use, this drug may be used in COVID treatment in Kerala as well. What is 2-DG? Is there any benefit from this? Can 2-DG become a COVID savior drug? Let's look into these.

? What is 2-DG?

Ans;- As the name implies, 2-DG is a 2D-oxy or oxygen-deprived glucose molecule. That is, the only hydrogen replaces the hydroxyl group in the second position of the glucose molecule. Channels in cells that transmit glucose can also transmit 2-DG. This means that cells that use more glucose naturally reach more than 2-DG. But it does not stick to 2-DG as it decomposes glucose to produce energy. Thus, 2-DG accumulates within cells and disrupts their glucose metabolism. Preliminary studies have also shown that the drug has the ability to inhibit cell growth in some way that has not yet been discovered. For this reason, research is underway to see if this drug can be used to fight rapidly growing cancer cells. It is also being tested for epilepsy, which cannot be controlled with other drugs.

? Is this a new molecule?

Ans: Of course not. This simple molecule of glucose has been around for decades in the scientific community. It has been tried and tested for many diseases, from influenza to cancer. But so far, it has not been fully proven to be safe and effective for any disease or used as a treatment.

? Is this medicine currently being used to treat any ailment?

Ans: This drug is not currently used as an approved treatment for any disease. But there have been about 218 clinical trials to see if the drug can be used for cancer. There are concerns that the drug could destroy healthy cells, as studies have shown that it can kill cancer cells. INMAS, DRDO, and Dr. Reddy's Lab in India have been studying the effectiveness of this drug for cancer since 2014. In addition, a chemical similar to 2DG, fluorodioxy glucose (FDG), is being used in PET scanning.

? Is this medicine safe?

Ans: According to a 2013 study, the drug has been tested in adults up to about three grams a day without major side effects. But it is not a drug with no side effects. This drug has been found to have the ability to cause some changes in the rhythm of the heart (QT prolongation). Further studies may be needed on how safe this drug is, given that the Kovid virus has been found to affect the sympathetic system and cause changes in heart rhythm. In addition, it is not just cancer cells that use high levels of glucose. Many fast-acting cells, for example, brain cells, use glucose in this way. If this drug causes their damage, the effect may not be as good.

? How did this drug come to be discussed in the context of COVID disease?

Ans: Some studies conducted by the Center for Cellular and Molecular Biology in Hyderabad last year found that this drug kills infected cells. Subsequently, in May 2020, the Central Drug Standards Control Organization (CDSCO) of the Drug Controller General of India approved the second phase of the 2-DG clinical trial in COVID patients.

From May to October, DRDO and Dr. Reddy's Lab conducted the second phase of clinical trials in 110 patients. With this information, Dr. Reddy's Lab approached the Subject Expert Committee of the Drug Controller General of India and sought permission to market the drug. But the committee said it would consider the matter only after conducting a larger study.

The third phase of the clinical trial was approved in November 2020 based on information obtained from the second phase of a clinical trial. However, information from these experiments has not yet been published as a study. The third phase of clinical trials was conducted between December 2020 and March 2021 in 220 patients at 27 COVID hospitals in Delhi, Uttar Pradesh, West Bengal, Gujarat, Rajasthan, Maharashtra, Andhra Pradesh, Telangana, Karnataka, and Tamil Nadu. Dr. Reddy's said the study could not be published because the information from these hospitals was not fully available.

? Is this medicine effective for COVID disease?

According to a press release issued by the DRDO, 2-DG Covid is claimed to be safe in patients and to have a faster recovery than usual in patients treated with it. The press release states that in the third phase of clinical trials, many patients had improved symptoms, reduced oxygen consumption (42% vs. 31%), and thus recovered earlier.

But keep in mind that this is limited information from an experiment conducted on very few people.

? Is there any connection between Patanjali and Acharya Balakrishna regarding this medicine? Have you seen any such news?

Ans: A month before starting DRDO studies on this molecule, i.e., in March 2020 itself, a study without a peer review by the Patanjali Research Institute and the Vivekananda Educational Society came to light Research Gate. It was an in-silico study (a study of computer modeling without any real chemicals or organisms - in which silicon is used to make computer chips). The study was titled Glucose antimetabolite 2-Deoxy-D-Glucose and its derivative as promising candidates for tackling Covid-19: Insights derived from silica docking and molecular simulations. The authors of the paper theorized that this would slow down the activity of the virus because it has the structural property of capturing viruses. But there is no real-world evidence for this theory. Also, it is not known if this has anything to do with the DRDO study.

?Is it time for COVID to use 2D as medicine? What is the opinion of Info Clinic?

Ans: What differentiates modern medicine from other unscientific treatment modalities is that it is given to patients only after scientifically testing and evaluating their safety and efficacy. Any medication must go through rigorous testing to meet this condition. It is unreasonable to assume that such an experiment has taken place in the case of this drug. In addition, many drugs (chloroquine, hydroxychloroquine, azithromycin, and ivermectin) that we have previously tried using unscientific criteria against COVID are ineffective. Therefore, Infoclinic thinks it would not be appropriate to apply this drug to people until the current experiment results are published in a peer-review journal. Large, reliable studies involving a large number of people are available.