What is it about?
People with diabetes often focus on keeping their blood sugar within a target range, and avoiding a wide spread in sugar levels (a lot of time with high and low blood sugar). However, the speed at which blood sugar rises or falls is also important. In this study, I looked at continuous glucose monitoring (CGM) data from healthy people to find out what counts as a “normal” rate of change in blood sugar. Then, I compared this with data from people with type 1 diabetes. I found that people with diabetes spend significantly more time with blood sugar changing faster than is seen in healthy individuals. I also showed that two measures of glycemic variability which have already been suggested by researchers are very closely linked to the time spent with these abnormal changes. This means doctors could use these measures to track harmful fluctuations more easily.
Featured Image
Photo by isens usa on Unsplash
Why is it important?
This research is the first to define what “abnormally fast” blood sugar changes look like compared to healthy people. The findings show that metrics that have already been proposed by researchers can detect these changes in practice. Recognizing rapid rises and falls in blood sugar may be just as important as measuring the spread in glucose levels, because there is increasing evidence that speed of changes could contribute to complications. These results strengthen the case for including a temporal variability metric in future diabetes care guidelines.
Perspectives
Writing this article gave me the chance to show that the "speed" of blood sugar change is measurable, meaningful, and different in diabetes compared to health. I hope this work encourages clinicians and researchers to pay closer attention to "speed" during glucose swings, not just the overall spread in values, and to consider new metrics that reflect the risk of adverse outcomes in people with diabetes.
Dr Robert Richardson
Read the Original
This page is a summary of: Do Metrics of Temporal Glycemic Variability Reveal Abnormal Glucose Rates of Change in Type 1 Diabetes?, Journal of Diabetes Science and Technology, November 2024, SAGE Publications,
DOI: 10.1177/19322968241298248.
You can read the full text:
Contributors
The following have contributed to this page
