The effect of exogenous glucagon-like peptide-1 on the glycaemic response to small intestinal nutrient in the critically ill: a randomised double-blind placebo-controlled cross over study

What Was Tested

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

The objective of this study was to establish if exogenous GLP-1 attenuates the glycaemic response to enteral nutrition in patients with critical illness induced hyperglycaemia.

Why It Was Studied

Hyperglycaemia occurs frequently in the critically ill, affects outcome adversely, and is exacerbated by enteral feeding.

Furthermore, treatment with insulin in this group is frequently complicated by hypoglycaemia.

Who Took Part

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

How the Study Was Run

In design terms this was a randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled and crossover study.

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

As a double-blind Glucagon study, the assignments were hidden from both participants and investigators until the end.

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

Each person switched between Glucagon and the comparison at some point, usually with a gap in between.

Infusions were administered on consecutive days in a randomised, double-blind fashion.

On both days a mixed nutrient liquid was infused, via a post-pyloric feeding catheter, at a rate of 1.5 kcal/min between 30 and 270 minutes.

Blood glucose and plasma GLP-1, insulin and glucagon concentrations were measured.

What Was Measured

Hyperglycaemia occurs frequently in the critically ill, affects outcome adversely, and is exacerbated by enteral feeding.

The subject headings attached to it are Area Under Curve, Blood Glucose, Critical Illness, Enteral Nutrition, Glucagon, Glucagon-Like Peptide 1 and Hyperglycemia.

What This Means in Plain Language

The paper is a randomized, double-blind and placebo-controlled study of Glucagon.

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 2009 (Critical care (London, England)), a journal based in England.

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