Glucose tolerance in patients with narcolepsy
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Updated: May 25, 2026

Characterization of Metabolic Status in Nonhuman Primates with the Intravenous Glucose Tolerance Test
Published on: November 13, 2016
Pierre A Beitinger1, Stephany Fulda, Mira A Dalal
1Max Planck Institute of Psychiatry, Munich, Germany.
Study Objectives:
Obesity is a common feature of narcolepsy. In addition, an increased occurrence of non-insulin dependent diabetes has been reported. So far, it is not known whether glucose metabolism in narcolepsy is disturbed due to, or independently of obesity.
Design:
Case-control study.
Setting:
Sleep medicine clinic at a research institute.
Patients:
We studied 17 patients with narcolepsy/cataplexy compared to 17 healthy controls matched for age, sex, and body mass index (BMI).
Interventions:
A 75-g oral glucose tolerance test was performed.
Measurements:
Glucose tolerance was determined by computing plasma glucose curve following oral glucose challenge for 240 minutes; insulin sensitivity and insulin secretion by homeostasis model assessment and minimal model analysis.
Results:
Standard outcome measures and indices of the oral glucose tolerance test did not differ between the patient group and the group of control subjects.
Conclusions:
In this study, no clinically relevant pathologic findings in the glucose metabolism of narcoleptic patients compared to weight matched controls were found. Thus, narcolepsy is unlikely to be a risk factor per se for impaired glucose tolerance or diabetes.
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