Insulin administration and rate of glucose appearance in people with type 1 diabetes

To assess whether prandial insulin, in addition to basal insulin, has an effect on the rate of glucose appearance from a meal in people with type 1 diabetes.

The rate of glucose appearance from a mixed meal (Ra(meal)) was investigated in six adult (aged 24 +/- 2 years), lean (BMI 23.6 +/- 1.5 kg/m(2)) subjects with well-controlled type 1 diabetes (duration 7.9 +/- 6.9 years, A1C 7.6 +/- 0.9%) with/without prandial insulin. Actrapid was infused to maintain euglycemia before meals were consumed. Subjects consumed two identical meals on separate occasions, and Ra(meal) was measured using a dual isotope method. [6,6-(2)H(2)]glucose was incorporated into the meal (0.081 g/kg body wt), and a primed constant/variable rate infusion of [1,2,3,4,5,6,6-(2)H(2)]glucose was administered. In the tests with prandial insulin, an additional bolus dose of Actrapid was given 20 min before the meal at 0.1 units/kg body wt.

Insulin concentration with prandial insulin was significantly higher than during basal insulin studies (119 +/- 16 vs. 66 +/- 15 pmol/l, P = 0.03 by paired t test). Despite differences in insulin concentration, there were no differences in total glucose appearance (3,398 +/- 197 vs. 3,307 +/- 343 micromol/kg) or time taken for 25% (33.1 +/- 3.3 vs. 31.7 +/- 3.5 min), 50% (54.6 +/- 3.5 vs. 54.1 +/- 4.7 min), and 75% (82.9 +/- 7.1 vs. 82.8 +/- 5.8 min) of total glucose appearance. The fraction of the glucose dose appearing in the circulation was the same for basal (73 +/- 8%) and prandial (75 +/- 4%) study days.

These results suggest that meal glucose appearance is independent of prandial insulin concentration in people with type 1 diabetes.