Post-prandial administration of the insulin analogue insulin aspart in patients with Type 1 diabetes mellitus

What Was Tested

This randomized controlled trial paper looks at Insulin Aspart.

In intensified insulin therapy, the recent development of short-acting insulin analogues with a very rapid onset of action forces a new discussion in terms of the optimal injection-meal interval.

This study evaluated prandial glycaemia in patients with Type 1 diabetes following the subcutaneous injection of soluble human insulin (HI) and the insulin analogue insulin aspart (IAsp) at different injection-meal intervals and investigated whether administration of IAsp after the meal might provide satisfactory metabolic control.

Who Took Part

According to the abstract, 20 patients were involved.

The age groups tagged for this paper are adults and middle-aged adults, both men and women.

In a randomized, double-blind, double-dummy, four-period crossover study, 20 Type 1 diabetic patients were investigated.

How the Study Was Run

The researchers set it up as a randomized, double-blind and crossover study.

Random assignment meant chance, not the researchers, decided who got Insulin Aspart and who got the comparison, which limits bias.

Neither the patients nor the staff measuring them knew who was on Insulin Aspart, so expectations could not easily colour the readings.

In the crossover set-up each of the patients took both Insulin Aspart and the comparison in turn, acting as their own control.

Prandial insulin was administered 15 min before the start of the meal (HI(-15min)), immediately before the meal (HI(0min); IAsp(0min)) and 15 min after the start of the meal (IAsp(+15min)).

What Was Measured

Topics PubMed links to this paper include Blood Glucose, Diabetes Mellitus, Type 1, Food, Hypoglycemic Agents, Insulin and Insulin Aspart.

What This Means in Plain Language

The paper is a randomized, double-blind and crossover study of Insulin Aspart in 20 patients.

With fewer than 40 people, it is a small study, so it is better read as an early signal for further research than as a settled answer.

Its findings take up roughly 5 sentences of the abstract and are left out here on purpose; the source paper is the place to read them.

The publication is from 2000 (Diabetic medicine : a journal of the British Diabetic Association), a journal based in England.

More context: the Insulin Aspart compound page, all human trials.