Is insulin detemir able to favor a lower variability in the action of injected insulin in diabetic subjects?

Insulin treated diabetic patients have often to contend with variability in the action of injected insulin and to some unpredictibility in glycemic control. The variability in blood glucose control seems particularly important with long-acting insulins. Insulin detemir belongs to a new class of non-crystalline form of long-acting insulin analogs. Absorption of insulin detemir is dependent on neither appropriate resuspension before injection and dissolution of crystals in the subcutaneous tissue, as is the case for NPH insulin, nor on formation and dissolution of microprecipitates, as is the case for insulin glargine. In euglycemic glucose clamp studies, insulin detemir was associated with significantly less within-subjects variability for the pharmacodynamic endpoints than both NPH insulin and insulin glargine. Three, up to 6 months trials, carried out in patients with type 1 diabetes have shown that the day-to-day within-subject variations in plasma glucose were significantly lower with insulin detemir than with human NPH insulin. Similar results have been reported in patients with type 2 diabetes. Nightly 8-h plasma glucose recordings showed a smoother and more stable profile with insulin detemir than with NPH insulin. In patients with type 1 diabetes the combination of insulin detemir with mealtime insulin aspart, a fast-acting insulin analog, provides a smoother and more stable profile with lower post-prandial plasma glucose levels that the combination of NPH insulin with regular human insulin before each meal. In several trials, the risk of hypoglycemia, particularly of nocturnal hypoglycemia, was significantly lower with insulin detemir than with NPH insulin. In conclusion insulin detemir offers a better reproducibility as compared with other basal insulins, reduces the risk of hypoglycemia, and may lead the patients to titrate their insulin doses more easily and therefore to achieve more often glycemic objectives. The combination of rapid- and long-acting insulin analogs reproduces a more physiological insulin secretion and thereby reduces the risk of hypoglycemia and improves the overall 24-h glycemic profile.