A case study of eight type 2 diabetic stage 4 chronic kidney disease patients showing lower glycemic variability with faster-acting insulin aspart as compared to insulin aspart

Background. Peaks and nadirs of blood glucose level varying daily in a person is referred to as glycemic variability (GV). GV associated with diabetics has been recently linked to cardiovascular disorders (CVD) or even chronic kidney disease (CKD) progression. Faster-acting insulin aspart is the latest ultra-rapid acting bolus insulin which has shown much lesser intra- and inter-patient variability as compared to conventional bolus insulin. Material and methods. However, inadequate data exist regarding GV in patients with advanced stages of CKD. Hence, with this objective, the present case study was undertaken with eight patients divided into two equal groups, wherein faster-acting insulin aspart and insulin aspart were used as the boluses, respectively. Continuous glucose monitoring data of the patients were taken for the initial four days to calculate mean amplitude of glycemic excursion (MAGE) of the total four days for each individual (mmol/L) to see the difference in GV. A value of > 3.607 mmol/L (65 mg/dL) was considered to be statistically significant. Results. In this case study of eight stage 4 CKD type 2 diabetic patients, statistically significant lower GV was observed in the faster-acting insulin aspart arm when compared with the insulin aspart arm. The pvalue was 0.0004 in unpaired t-test and < 0.05 for U in Mann-Whitney U test after ruling out the baseline confounding factors. Conclusions. This study confirms the stable pharmacokinetic and dynamic properties of faster-acting insulin aspart and subsequent studies with larger numer of patients are required for a conclusive outcome.