HYPOGLYCEMIA CAUSED BY SELEGILINE, AN ANTIPARKINSONIAN DRUG - CAN SUCH SIDE-EFFECTS BE PREDICTED

Treatment with selegiline produced profound hypoglycemia in a 70-year- old man with Parkinson's disease. The hypoglycemia was accompanied by hyperinsulinemia and persisted for 1 week after selegiline was discont inued. Although this side effect of antidepressant monoamine oxidase i nhibitors was well documented in 1959-1968 publications, it was not kn own to the manufacturer of selegiline. Effects of drugs on glucose met abolism may be predictable through a novel molecular modeling techniqu e developed in our laboratories, which shows that glucose exhibits ste reochemical complementarity to a specific site in partially unwound DN A. Selegiline and other molecules affecting glucose metabolism fit int o the same DNA base sequence. It therefore should be possible to emplo y this technique to identify pharmaceutical agents that posses hypogly cemic or hyperglycemic effects in vivo.