Improved glycemic control with no weight increase in patients with type 2 diabetes after once-daily treatment with the long-acting glucagon-like peptide 1 analog liraglutide (NN2211): a 12-week, double-blind, randomized, controlled trial

What Was Tested

Researchers studied Glucagon and Liraglutide in this randomized controlled trial publication.

Liraglutide is a long-acting glucagon-like peptide 1 analog designed for once daily injection.

Who Took Part

The abstract describes 2 patients taking part.

By PubMed's age tags, the people studied were middle-aged adults, both men and women.

A double-blind, randomized, parallel-group, placebo-controlled trial with an open-label comparator arm was conducted among 193 outpatients with type 2 diabetes.

How the Study Was Run

The design is described as randomized, double-blind, open-label, placebo-controlled and parallel-group.

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

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

Being open-label, the Glucagon study did not mask who received what.

A placebo (an inactive look-alike) gave the Glucagon group a baseline to be compared against.

A time span of 12 weeks appears in the methods.

The primary end point was HbA(1c) after 12 weeks; secondary end points were fasting serum glucose, fasting C-peptide, fasting glucagon, fasting insulin, beta-cell function, body weight, adverse events, and hypoglycemic episodes.

What Was Measured

The subject headings attached to it are Blood Glucose, Diabetes Mellitus, Type 2, Glucagon, Glucagon-Like Peptide 1, Glycated Hemoglobin, Insulin and Liraglutide.

What This Means in Plain Language

The paper is a randomized, double-blind and open-label study of Glucagon and Liraglutide in 2 patients over 12 weeks.

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.

The abstract goes on to report its results in about 10 sentences; this page does not restate them, so read the paper for the findings and their limits.

The publication is from 2004 (Diabetes care), a journal based in United States.

More context: the Glucagon compound page and the Liraglutide compound page.