05/15/2021
The post below promotes an unproven therapy of COVID19, using scientific terms in sentences which make no sense whatsoever. This 'brilliantly thought process' touted here appears to be tailor-made to bolster efforts by the Indian Govt to counter questions against their mismanagement. This is increasing becoming more and more reckless with a focus on displaying a 'homegrown miracle' in whatever way possible.
Maybe this is a really effective drug, maybe it does work well and will prove to be a game changer. But unless we as scientists see the concrete evidence, we will be skeptical.
First, lets get to the language in this post below. The explanation for this 'cheat the cheater' analogy starts off by talking about a 'virus cell'. The moment an article or writeup mentions a virus as a cell - it is a red flag. A 'virus' is an entity that does not have any machinery to absorb or produce anergy like a cell (animal, plant, bacteria) does. It is a particle that enters cells and then uses the cell's proteins to make more of itself. It can only replicate that way inside the cell. The cell is what requires the energy to sustain itself.
So of course the virus does not need glucose, the cell does! Our own cells. So in no way is the virus 'taking in' any glucose, 'pseudo' or otherwise - it is our own cells that do it as a part of their regular process to survive. When the cells take up this 2-DG molecule, they take it up in the same way they would a normal D-glucose molecule.
What takes the cake though is, according to this post the virus gets 'neutered' when it 'takes up' this wonder drug - like an stray canine picked up by the animal welfare department. I do not understand the word 'neutered' in context of the virus.
So this entire post kind out touts a false idea, disguising it with common scientific terms, which can easily be picked apart by any scientist, let alone a virologist.
'Cheat the cheater'? It's not clear who is getting cheated here and by whom?
Secondly, coming to the actual drug development itself. I have found it really shameful that such a drug based on so little scientific evidence could actually be approved for clinical trials.
https://science.thewire.in/the-sciences/dcgi-drdo-2-dg-covid-19-treatment-phase-2-3-trials-shoddy-evidence/
All we have seen so far as 'evidence' regarding the efficacy of this drug is a 'plaque assay' dish - where the amount of virus produced by infected vs uninfected cells is measured in cells grown in a culture dish. Imagine that...this drug has been injected into humans based on a couple of experiments on (likely monkey) cells in a dish. Without any evidence (that is shown) in animals, without any publication in a peer reviewed journal from this study- this has gone into clinical trials - in humans!
https://pib.gov.in/PressReleasePage.aspx?PRID=1717007
The results of these trials are also sketchy at best with very few data figures, information about the cohort of people on whom this has been performed.
But according to previously published studies on this molecule in reputed peer-reviewed journals - Chen et al., Cancer cell, 2016, "As normal cells also use glucose as their main metabolic fuel, inhibiting glucose utilization with 2-DG causes substantial adverse side effects, including hypoglycemia-like symptoms, gastrointestinal bleeding, hypotension, decreased respiratory frequency, as well as hematologic and biochemical toxicity (Raez et al., 2013, Vijayaraghavan et al., 2006)." Basically this means that cells get starved for the 'real' glucose as they can't use 2-DG to produce energy.
Have these been tested for? If so where is the hematological data of the test subjects? If these are all people with normal blood pressure and sugar levels what happens for people already having hypotension and hypoglycemia issues? Obviously, none of that was important as most likely none of this was even considered.
And the efficacy? Based on the lab data seen so far, mild hydrochloric acid or chickpea hummus treated cells would have shown the same phenotype by reducing the amount of virus titer. If those few results are the measure of taking a drug to clinical trials - I have discovered about 5 drugs in my scientific career so far.
2-DG has been shown to have a generic effect on the production of some viruses by a cell through inhibiting the main glucose metabolism pathway of the cell. It inhibits a critical enzyme in that pathway. But it is the cellular pathway we are talking about, and that too an important one! This would mean starving and killing our own cells for glucose/energy in order to kill the virus.
Again can observations 'in-vitro' on cells on a dish be directly translated to what happens in a real human being? Every scientist knows there are many more critical steps to test before that. There are multiple cell types, tissue and pathways in the body. Any therapeutic will be tested extensively in vitro first before even going to the stage of being tested in laboratory animals. And only if experiments with animals succeed would it even be permitted for trials in humans. Thus there is a long way to success for an antiviral drug or therapeutic. A 'plaque assay' test is only the very first step. All of the vaccines for COVID19 developed so far have gone through this process.
The DRDO press release also mentions "It accumulates in the virus infected cells and prevents virus growth by stopping viral synthesis and energy production. Its selective accumulation in virally infected cells makes this drug unique." I have not seen a single piece of evidence that shows this drug 'selectively accumulates' in SARS2 infected cells. Literally every cell will be taking it up indiscriminately and their metabolism would be affected.
In healthy individuals, this might not matter as the body's self-correcting mechanism or homeostasis prevents this from becoming toxic. But what happens in individuals with health issue described above.
Overall, the advancement of this drug into clinical trials appears to be based on a way for the govt to save face and come up with a 'home grown' atmanirbhar' solution, with complete disregard of public safety and scientific facts."
An anti-COVID-19 therapeutic application of the drug 2-deoxy-D-glucose (2-DG) has been developed by
