Insulin lispro: a potential role in preventing nocturnal hypoglycaemia in young children with diabetes mellitus

What Was Tested

The paper reports a study of Insulin Lispro, published as a randomized controlled trial.

The long duration of action of soluble insulin given in the evening could contribute to the high prevalence of nocturnal hypoglycaemia seen in young children with Type 1 diabetes mellitus (T1DM).

Who Took Part

The abstract describes 16 boys taking part.

PubMed indexes the participants as children.

Open crossover study comparing insulin lispro vs. soluble insulin in 23 (16 boys) prepubertal children (age 7-11 years) with T1DM on three injections/day; long-acting isophane insulin remained identical.

At the end of each 4-month treatment arm, an overnight 15-min venous sampled blood glucose profile was performed.

How the Study Was Run

The design is described as randomized and crossover.

The boys were allocated by chance, so the Insulin Lispro group and the comparison group should start out alike.

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

What Was Measured

Topics PubMed links to this paper include Blood Glucose, Diabetes Mellitus, Type 1, Glycated Hemoglobin, Hypoglycemia, Hypoglycemic Agents, Insulin and Insulin Lispro.

What This Means in Plain Language

The paper is a randomized and crossover study of Insulin Lispro in 16 boys.

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.

Results are reported in around 5 sentences of the abstract; we leave them to the paper itself rather than summarise them.

The publication is from 2003 (Diabetic medicine : a journal of the British Diabetic Association), a journal based in England.

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