Background: Glucose effectiveness (GE) is the capacity of glucose to increase its own uptake and to maintain endogenous hepatic glucose output under basal insulin levels. In addition to decreased insulin sensitivity (IS) and impaired insulin secretion, GE plays a critical role in glucose balance in patients with type 2 diabetes (T2DM). In the study, we developed an equation for predicting GE.
Methods: We enrolled 227 participants with glucose tolerances ranging from normal glucose tolerance to diabetes. Of the participants, 75% (171) participants were randomly assigned to the study group, whose data were used to construct the equation for estimating GE. The remaining 56 participants comprised the validation group. All participants underwent a frequently sampled intravenous glucose tolerance test; IS, GE, and the acute insulin response after the glucose load were determined.
Results: Age, triglyceride (TG), and fasting plasma glucose (FPG) were independently correlated with GE and selected for inclusion in multiple linear regression analysis. We constructed the following equation: GE = (29.196 - 0.103 × age - 2.722 × TG - 0.592 × FPG) × 10-3. Using this same equation, we also calculated the GE of the validation group. The calculated GE was significantly correlated with the measured GE (r = 0.430, P = 0.001).
Conclusions: Using the equation based on routine measurements enabled the GE to be predicted with acceptable accuracy (r = 0.430). This method of predicting GE may aid clinicians in further understanding the underlying pathological mechanisms of T2DM.
Keywords: frequently sampled intravenous glucose tolerance test; glucose effectiveness; insulin sensitivity.