In a review article entitled the “Wonders of 2-Deoxy-D-glucose” (Xi H, Kurtoglu M, Lampidis TJ.. IUBMB Life. 2014 Feb;66(2):110-21), we wrote that it comes as no surprise that this sugar analog could have such profound and widespread effects on major diseases such as aging, cancer and viral infections because it mimics glucose which not only is a vital energy source but “provides the building blocks for a cell or virus to replicate”.
Now comes a new study that reports the effectiveness of 2-Deoxy-D-glucose (2-DG for short) in animal models of Alzheimer’s disease as well as cerebral stroke: 2-Deoxyglucose drives plasticity via an adaptive ER stress-ATF4 pathway and elicits stroke recovery and Alzheimer's resilience (Kumar A, Karuppagounder SS, Chen Y, Corona C, Kawaguchi R, Cheng Y, Balkaya M, Sagdullaev BT, Wen Z, Stuart C, Cho S, Ming GL, Tuvikene J, Timmusk T, Geschwind DH, Ratan RR Neuron. 2023 Jul 11:S0896-6273(23)).
In this study, the investigators report that 2-DG stimulates the expression of brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF for short) which basically makes brain cells able to reverse the effects of injury as well as regrow.
These findings come on the heels of a recent case study in which it was demonstrated that the 2-DG slow-drip (metronomic) protocol we designed and is now being used in several different countries in stage four cancer patients, had a profoundly positive effect in a patient suffering from glioblastoma, an incurable form of brain cancer which kills more than 200,000 patients each year.
With the approval in 2021 by the Indian government for 2-DG to be used against SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19 when it was sweeping the country, another new step forward for the use of this unique sugar analog against viral diseases was taken.
Subsequently, it was reported that our findings of 2-DG’s effectiveness in causing ER stress could be applied to increasing the efficacy of immunotherapy as reported by Greco et al: Disrupting N-glycan expression on tumor cells boosts chimeric antigen receptor T cell efficacy against solid malignancies (Sci Transl Med. 2022 Jan 19;14(628)).
Thus, it is clear that the use of 2-DG continues to expand, which as we wrote in 2014, is not surprising based on its ability to mimic such an important natural sugar, glucose.
Although, due to its non-patentability, 2-DG has yet to be fully approved by the FDA for it to be available to the many more it can help, the science supporting it continues to be uncovered.
With your help in joining us to raise the funds required for it to successfully complete clinical trials, we remain hopeful that 2-DG will reach those that it can truly help in an ever-expandingrange of diseases.