Effects of glepaglutide, a novel long-acting glucagon-like peptide-2 analogue, on markers of liver status in patients with short bowel syndrome: findings from a randomised phase 2 trial.

What Was Tested

Researchers studied Glucagon in this randomized controlled trial publication.

With the introduction of glucagon-like peptide-2 (GLP-2) in the treatment of short bowel syndrome (SBS), there is emerging evidence that GLP-2 may play a role in the restoration of the disturbed homeostatic feedback in the gut-liver axis and may ameliorate SBS-associated liver damage.

As exploratory endpoints, the researchers here assessed the effect of glepaglutide on liver function.

Who Took Part

According to the abstract, 18 patients were involved.

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

How the Study Was Run

The researchers set it up as a randomized 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.

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

This trial is completed and registered at ClinicalTrials.gov: NCT02690025.

What Was Measured

As exploratory endpoints, the researchers here assessed the effect of glepaglutide on liver function.

Topics PubMed links to this paper include Biomarkers, Denmark, Elasticity Imaging Techniques, Glucagon-Like Peptide 2, Liver and Short Bowel Syndrome.

The authors tagged it with the keywords Indocyanine green, Soluble CD163, Soluble mannose receptor and Transient elastography.

What This Means in Plain Language

The paper is a randomized and crossover study of Glucagon in 18 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.

Its findings take up roughly 8 sentences of the abstract and are left out here on purpose; the source paper is the place to read them.

The publication is from 2019 (EBioMedicine), a journal based in Netherlands.

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