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THE EFFECT OF GLUCAGON ON LOCAL SUBCUTANEOUS BLOOD FLOW IN HEALTHY VOLUNTEERS; A PROOF-OF-CONCEPT STUDY
Abstract
Background and Aims
The subcutaneous tissue is the main site for insulin replacement therapy and continuous glucose monitoring for people with diabetes mellitus type 1. However, the delay in both insulin absorption and glucose sensing prevents strict and automated glucose control. A way of minimising these delays would be to increase the local blood flow. We have investigated the vasodilative properties of glucagon in this proof-of-concept study.
Methods
Twenty-two healthy subjects received subcutaneous injections of 0.1 mg, 0.01 mg glucagon (Glucagon, Novo Nordisk, Denmark), and saline on the abdomen. Blood flow was measured by a laser doppler blood flowmeter for 35 minutes after the injections.
Results
Injection of 0.1 mg glucagon resulted in a significant increase in blood flow compared with baseline for all time intervals. Significant increase was also observed after the 0.01 mg glucagon injection, except between two- and five-minutes post injection. The inter-individual variance was large and a third of the subjects did not show an apparent increase in local subcutaneous blood flow after the 0.1 mg glucagon injection.
Conclusions
This proof-of-concept study shows that glucagon increases the local subcutaneous blood flow on the abdomen of healthy subjects. If these results are transferrable to people with diabetes, micro-boluses of glucagon may potentially speed up the absorption of insulin and improve the performance of continuous glucose monitoring in the subcutaneous tissue and thereby enable stricter glucose control. However, the vasodilative effect of glucagon is not observed in all subjects.