The effects of add-on exenatide to insulin on glycemic variability and hypoglycemia in patients with type 1 diabetes mellitus

What Was Tested

This randomized controlled trial paper looks at Exenatide.

To investigate the effect of add-on exenatide to insulin on glycemic excursion and the counter-regulatory hormone in response to hypoglycemia in patients with type 1 diabetes mellitus (T1DM).

All patients had continuous glucose monitor system (CGMS) applied at before (week-0) and after (week-4) treatment to evaluate the glycemic variability.

Six patients from each group also had hypoglycemic clamp test to assess counter-regulatory hormone level.

Who Took Part

The study group was 30 patients.

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

30 patients with T1DM were recruited and randomly assigned to exenatide + insulin-treated group (group 1, n = 15) or insulin-only-treated group (group 2, n = 15) for 4 weeks.

All patients had an arginine-stimulated test at before and after treatment.

How the Study Was Run

In design terms this was a randomized study.

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

The timeline in the abstract includes 4 weeks.

What Was Measured

PubMed files the paper under topics including Biomarkers, Blood Glucose, Case-Control Studies, Diabetes Mellitus, Type 1, Exenatide, Glucagon and Glycated Hemoglobin.

The authors tagged it with the keywords Glycemic excursion and Type 1 diabetes mellitus.

What This Means in Plain Language

The paper is a randomized study of Exenatide in 30 patients over 4 weeks.

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 2018 (Journal of endocrinological investigation), a journal based in Italy.

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