Fasting Plasma Glucose Indicates Reversibility of the Acute Insulin Response after Short-Term Intensive Insulin Therapy in Patients with Various Duration of Type 2 Diabetes

Recovery of acute insulin response (AIR) is shown to be associated with long-term outcomes of patients with early type 2 diabetes treated with short-term intensive insulin therapy (SIIT). However, the complexity of measuring an AIR limits its utility in a real-world clinical setting. The aim of the study was to assess fasting indicators that may estimate recovery of the AIR after SIIT. We enrolled 62 patients with type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM) of varying disease duration who had poor glycemic control. Participants were treated with SIIT using insulin pumps to achieve near normoglycemia for 7 days. The AIR before and after the therapy were measured by intravenous glucose tolerance tests. After the therapy, AIR increased from −16.7 (−117.4, 52.4) pmol/L·min to 178.7 (31.8, 390.7) pmol/L·min (P < 0.001) while hyperglycemia was alleviated; this improvement was observed in all disease duration categories. AIR was almost absent when fasting plasma glucose (FPG) > 10 mmol/L, while both AIR (R = −0.53, P < 0.001) and its improvement from baseline (△AIR, R = −0.52, P < 0.001) were negatively associated with FPG after SIIT when FPG < 10 mmol/L. In multivariate analyses, FPG after SIIT and baseline fasting C peptide were independent indicators of both AIR after the therapy and ∆AIR; HDL-C after the therapy also predicted AIR after the therapy. We concluded that recovery of the AIR could be obtained in T2DM patients of varying disease duration by SIIT and it could be conveniently estimated using posttreatment fasting plasma glucose and other fasting indicators.