Vitamin C further improves the protective effect of glucagon-like peptide-1 on acute hypoglycemia-induced oxidative stress, inflammation, and endothelial dysfunction in type 1 diabetes.

What Was Tested

Researchers studied Glucagon in this randomized controlled trial publication.

To test the hypothesis that acute hypoglycemia induces endothelial dysfunction and inflammation through the generation of an oxidative stress.

Who Took Part

The abstract describes 20 patients taking part.

The age groups tagged for this paper are young adults, both men and women.

A total of 20 type 1 diabetic patients underwent four experiments: a period of 2 h of acute hypoglycemia with or without infusion of GLP-1 or vitamin C or both.

How the Study Was Run

The researchers set it up as a randomized study.

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

At baseline, after 1 and 2 h, glycemia, plasma nitrotyrosine, plasma 8-iso prostaglandin F2a (PGF2a), soluble intracellular adhesion molecule-1a (sICAM-1a), interleukin-6 (IL-6), and flow-mediated vasodilation were measured.

When GLP-1 and vitamin C were infused simultaneously, the deleterious effect of hypoglycemia was almost completely counterbalanced.

What Was Measured

The subject headings attached to it are Acute Disease, Antioxidants, Ascorbic Acid, Blood Glucose, Diabetes Mellitus, Type 1, Endothelium, Vascular and Glucagon-Like Peptide 1.

What This Means in Plain Language

The paper is a randomized study of Glucagon in 20 patients.

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.

The abstract goes on to report its results in about 6 sentences; this page does not restate them, so read the paper for the findings and their limits.

The publication is from 2013 (Diabetes care), a journal based in United States.

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