No ghrelin response to oral glucose in diabetes mellitus with gastroparesis

What Was Tested

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

To investigate the role of ghrelin, an endogenous ligand of the growth hormone secretagogue receptor, in diabetic gastroparesis, the researchers evaluated the plasma ghrelin profile during the oral glucose tolerance test in 55 patients with diabetes (men/women: 36/19, mean +/- SE of age: 55.1 +/- 1.7 years) with or without gastroparesis (diagnosed by the (13)C-acetate breath test).

Why It Was Studied

The researchers also further examined cardiac autonomic neuropathy by assessing 24-hour variation of the R-R interval in randomly selected 32 patients with diabetes (men/women: 23/9, mean +/- SE of age: 54.2 +/- 2.5 years), and evaluated the influence of autonomic neuropathy on ghrelin.

Who Took Part

The study group was 55 patients.

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

How the Study Was Run

The researchers set it up as a randomized study.

Because people in this Ghrelin study were split into groups at random, differences between the groups are less likely to reflect who happened to join each one.

What Was Measured

The researchers also further examined cardiac autonomic neuropathy by assessing 24-hour variation of the R-R interval in randomly selected 32 patients with diabetes (men/women: 23/9, mean +/- SE of age: 54.2 +/- 2.5 years), and evaluated the influence of autonomic neuropathy on ghrelin.

PubMed files the paper under topics including Autonomic Nervous System Diseases, Blood Glucose, Case-Control Studies, Diabetes Mellitus, Type 2, Diabetic Neuropathies, Electrocardiography, Ambulatory and Gastroparesis.

What This Means in Plain Language

The paper is a randomized study of Ghrelin in 55 patients.

The publication is from 2009 (Endocrine journal), a journal based in Japan.

More context: the Ghrelin compound page, all human trials.