In an otherwise enticing article by Schmitz et al. (1) in the February 2002 issue of Diabetes Care, the authors make several assertions that are difficult to support by the data presented in the article.
The authors discuss “early-phase” insulin secretion numerous times throughout their article and seem to consider this term the same as “acute phase” insulin secretion (conclusions, paragraph two, line 13: “[…] early-phase insulin release is one of the first defects to appear as type 2 diabetes develops”). Based on this assumption, they conclude that the study drug did indeed improve “early-phase” insulin secretion (presumably within 10 min after administration, by their definition) (conclusions, paragraph 2, line 9) but there are no data presented in their article to support this contention.
As best as I could tell, Schmitz et al. measured blood samples 43 times over 24 h, but the intervals of measurement are not given. Even if they measured insulin levels at 1-min intervals after oral glucose administration, would this be equivalent to insulin secretion after intravenously administered glucose? Perhaps I am missing something here, but are these two terms interchangeable (acute-phase insulin release and early-phase insulin secretion)?
I would greatly appreciate it if the authors could clarify this point for me.
Address correspondence to Marshall B Block, MD, Endocrinology Associates Pa, 3522 N Third Ave., Phoenix, AZ 85013. E-mail: [email protected].
