Glucagon Levels During Short-Term SGLT2 Inhibition Are Largely Regulated by Glucose Changes in Patients With Type 2 Diabetes

What Was Tested

This randomized controlled trial paper looks at Glucagon.

To assess short-term effects on glucagon, other hormones, and energy substrates after SGLT2 inhibition and whether such effects are secondary to glucose lowering.

The impact of adding a dipeptidyl peptidase-4 inhibitor was addressed.

Who Took Part

According to the abstract, 15 patients were involved.

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

A phase 4, single-center, randomized, three-treatment crossover, open-label study including 15 patients with type 2 diabetes treated with metformin.

How the Study Was Run

In design terms this was a randomized, open-label 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.

Being open-label, the Glucagon study did not mask who received what.

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

Directly after 5-hour infusions, a 2-hour oral glucose tolerance test (OGTT) was performed.

What Was Measured

The subject headings attached to it are Adamantane, Blood Glucose, Diabetes Mellitus, Type 2, Dipeptides, Dipeptidyl-Peptidase IV Inhibitors, Glucagon and Glucose Clamp Technique.

What This Means in Plain Language

The paper is a randomized, open-label and crossover study of Glucagon in 15 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 2019 (The Journal of clinical endocrinology and metabolism), a journal based in United States.

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