Prednisolone reduces the ability of serum to activate the IGF1 receptor in vitro without affecting circulating total or free IGF1.

What Was Tested

Researchers studied Prednisolone in this randomized controlled trial publication.

To investigate whether GC treatment affects the ability of serum to activate the IGF1 receptor (IGF1R) in vitro (i.e. bioactive IGF1), using a specific cell-based IGF1 kinase receptor activation assay.

Who Took Part

The age groups tagged for this paper are children and teenagers, both men and women.

How the Study Was Run

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

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

Blinding on both sides kept the participants and researchers unaware of who received Prednisolone.

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

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

Non-fasting serum samples were collected in the afternoon after each 7-day period and assayed for bioactive IGF1, free IGF1, total IGFs, IGF-binding proteins (IGFBPs), and insulin.

What Was Measured

PubMed files the paper under topics including Asthma, Insulin-Like Growth Factor Binding Protein 1, Insulin-Like Growth Factor Binding Protein 2, Insulin-Like Growth Factor I, Prednisolone and Receptor, IGF Type 1.

What This Means in Plain Language

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

The abstract goes on to report its results in about 7 sentences; this page does not restate them, so read the paper for the findings and their limits.

The publication is from 2013 (European journal of endocrinology), a journal based in England.

More context: all human trials.