Oral glutamine increases circulating glucagon-like peptide 1, glucagon, and insulin concentrations in lean, obese, and type 2 diabetic subjects

What Was Tested

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

Incretin hormones, such as glucagon-like peptide 1 (GLP-1) and glucose-dependent insulinotropic polypeptide (GIP), play an important role in meal-related insulin secretion.

Who Took Part

The study group was 8 individuals.

PubMed indexes the participants as adults, both men and women.

The researchers recruited 8 healthy normal-weight volunteers (LEAN), 8 obese individuals with type 2 diabetes or impaired glucose tolerance (OB-DIAB) and 8 obese nondiabetic control subjects (OB-CON).

How the Study Was Run

The researchers set it up as a randomized and crossover study.

The individuals were allocated by chance, so the Glucagon group and the comparison group should start out alike.

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

What Was Measured

Topics PubMed links to this paper include Area Under Curve, Blood Glucose, Diabetes Mellitus, Type 2, Gastric Inhibitory Polypeptide, Glucagon, Glucagon-Like Peptide 1 and Glucose Tolerance Test.

What This Means in Plain Language

The paper is a randomized and crossover study of Glucagon in 8 individuals.

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 6 sentences of the abstract; we leave them to the paper itself rather than summarise them.

The publication is from 2009 (The American journal of clinical nutrition), a journal based in United States.

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