Glucagon treatment in type 1 diabetes -with focus on restoring plasma glucose during mild hypoglycemia .

Type 1 diabetes is a chronic disease caused by an autoimmune destruction of the insulin-producing cells in the pancreas, leading to a condition with insulin deficiency and elevated blood glucose levels. Individuals with type 1 diabetes are therefore recommended to frequently inject insulin subcutaneously to keep near-normal blood glucose levels, preventing the progression and onset of diabetes-related complications, i.e. kidney failure, blindness, amputation, stroke and heart attack. Unfortunately, the intensified insulin therapy is associated with risk of hypoglycemia- impeding individuals from reaching recommended treatment goals. In this PhD thesis, we hypothesized that low-dose glucagon may complement existing insulin therapy in improving glucose control by treating and preventing mild hypoglycemia.
 The aim was to determine whether low-dose glucagon could treat insulin-induced mild hypoglycemia sufficiently, and to investigate conditions that might impair the efficacy of glucagon. We showed that the glucose response to low-dose glucagon was dose-dependent but was impaired during high blood levels of insulin, after one week of low carbohydrate diet and perhaps 8-9 hours after ethanol intake. These findings are clinically relevant when blood glucose levels are controlled through insulin and glucagon delivery. Articles published in the Danish Medical Journal are “open access”. This means that the articles are distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Non-commercial License, which permits any non-commercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author(s) and source are credited.