 2DG or 2-deoxyglucose has been used in the treatment of cancer. Now Institute of Nuclear Medicine and Applied Science and ARM of DRDO conducted clinical trials on the use of this drug in COVID patients and it has been recently approved in India for use in COVID patients. So how does this drug act and for which kind of patients is this drug approved for? Well first thing you should understand is that this drug is similar to glucose which our body normally utilizes for energy. So this drug is also taken like glucose sachets which are available that is it's a sachet which is dissolved in water and taken orally. But remember that because it's a kind of a twin of glucose our cells can confuse glucose with this drug. So does it mean that all cells will start taking this drug and will be affected? Well no. Actually what happens is that virus enters some cells, goes inside them and multiplies. Now these cells which are infected by virus, virus actually changes them a bit such that it can supply a huge amount of energy required for multiplication of the virus. So obviously these cells require a huge amount of glucose also. So it is at these cells mostly that there is a competition between two deoxyglucose and a normal glucose to enter the cells and along with normal glucose this drug also enters the cells. However this drug does not supply energy like glucose. See there is a complete process of chemical reactions by which glucose provides energy. In the first step of these chemical reactions glucose is converted to glucose 6-phosphate in the presence of enzyme hexokinase. So when this drug enters into the cell it also gets converted to 2-deoxy glucose 6-phosphate by the same enzyme. However once this chemical is produced it blocks the enzymes of this pathway. So the pathway cannot proceed further. So basically the infected cells energy supply system is blocked. Since once the enzymes are blocked even glucose cannot be used to supply energy. Finally this gives the viral infected cells since they cannot obtain energy. So well that's the mechanism of action of the drug. But for which patients has this drug been approved? Is it for prevention of COVID, for mild disease, moderate disease or for severe disease? Well since mechanism of action is such that it kills the infected cells. So obviously the person should be infected. So this is not the drug which is approved for prevention of COVID. So if you do not suffer from COVID you should not take this drug. Moreover since the research is done only for COVID patients we do not know that if you take the drug if you are not infected. Will there be any side effects or not? And if side effects are there then what kind of side effects? So please do not take this drug if you are not infected. This drug is approved for patients with moderate to severe disease only. And it has been found that it can reduce the number of days for which oxygen support is required. See a drug is recommended for which the research is done. On the basis of that study the drug cannot be approved for any other severity of disease. Since the research was done in hospital setting for patients who were on oxygen support that is either they had moderate or severe disease that's why the drug is recommended for those patients. Hopefully this video answered some of the questions which you had in mind on this drug. Well thanks for watching the video. Please share the video with others to help spread the information and do subscribe to the channel Physiology Open for more such updates. Thank you.