medwireNews: Research suggests that the dawn phenomenon may be present in more than half of patients with type 1 diabetes.
Bruce Perkins (Mount Sinai Hospital, Toronto, Ontario, Canada) reported at the ADA Scientific Sessions in Orlando, Florida, that the dawn phenomenon (at least a 20% rise in glucose from the 24-hour mean) was identified in 52% of 33 patients (drawn from two studies) in his team’s analysis.
These patients were similar to those without the dawn phenomenon except for a markedly longer duration of diabetes, at 25.1 versus 13.4 years in one of the studies, for example. In this study (20 patients), the dawn phenomenon resulted in a 58.1% increase in insulin needs; in the other study, the increase was 65.5%, although the magnitude was highly variable in both sets of patients.
In both studies, the rise occurred at around 03:00 hours, Perkins and team found.
All the patients were insulin pump users, and Perkins suggested the prevalence could be less among unselected patients, but he stressed that the magnitude seen is “very meaningful” to patients for maintaining glycemic control, and shows the potential value of doing a fasting overnight glucose profile.
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