The once-daily human glucagon-like peptide-1 (GLP-1) analog liraglutide improves postprandial glucose levels in type 2 diabetes patients

What Was Tested

This randomized controlled trial paper looks at Liraglutide.

Plasma glucose, insulin, and paracetamol (acetaminophen) concentrations (to assess gastric emptying) were measured pre- and postmeal.

Why It Was Studied

Fasting and postprandial plasma glucose (FPG, PPG) control are both necessary to achieve glycosylated hemoglobin (HbA(1c)) regulation goals.

Who Took Part

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

Patients were randomized into two groups (A or B).

Group B was treated as for Group A, but treatment periods were reversed (ie, placebo followed by liraglutide).

How the Study Was Run

The researchers set it up as a randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled and crossover study.

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

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

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

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

The timeline in the abstract includes 3 weeks.

Group A received oncedaily liraglutide for 3 weeks, followed by a 3-4-week washout period and 3 weeks of oncedaily placebo.

What Was Measured

The subject headings attached to it are Blood Glucose, Diabetes Mellitus, Type 2, Fasting, Gastric Emptying, Glucagon-Like Peptide 1, Incretins and Insulin.

What This Means in Plain Language

The paper is a randomized, double-blind and placebo-controlled study of Liraglutide over 3 weeks.

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 2011 (Advances in therapy), a journal based in United States.

More context: the Liraglutide compound page.