Both acute and chronic near-normoglycaemia are required to improve insulin resistance in type 1 (insulin-dependent) diabetes mellitus.

To determine the impact of both short- and long-term "near-normoglycaemia" on insulin resistance in Type 1 (insulin-dependent) diabetes hepatic glucose production (mg.kg-1.min-1) and peripheral glucose utilisation ("M-value", mg.kg-1.min-1) were estimated during an euglycaemic hyperinsulinaemic clamp (10 mU.kg.min) in patients with either good (HbA1c < 5.8%, groups A and B) or poor (HbA1c > 7.5%, groups C and D) long-term metabolic control (time > 12 months) and in healthy subjects (HbA1c: 5.08 +/- 0.20%; n = 8). To this end blood glucose was stabilized at 6.7 mmol/l by overnight (t = 12 h) i.v. regular insulin in groups (n = 8 each) A (HbA1c: 5.49 +/- 0.46%) and C (HbA1c: 8.83 +/- 1.20%), while groups B (HbA1c: 5.55 +/- 0.19%) and D (HbA1c: 8.51 +/- 1.09%) were kept overnight on long-acting insulin without feed-back control of blood glucose before euglycaemic clamping. Thereby, pre-equilibration of blood glucose at 6.7 mmol/l was shown to normalize basal hepatic glucose production (A: 2.27 +/- 0.48; C 2.50 +/- 0.57 mg.kg-1.min-1) despite different HbA1c values, whereas basal hepatic glucose production stayed elevated in groups B (3.09 +/- 0.38 mg.kg-1.min-1) and D (3.21 +/- 0.58 mg.kg-1.min-1) with poor actual glycaemia (B: 10.9 +/- 4.6; D: 12.1 +/- 4.6 mmol/l).(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)