Post by
Andrew Norris, MD PhD
Director, Pediatric Endocrinology & Diabetes
University of Iowa Stead Family Children’s Hospital
It can be challenging to distinguish type 1 from type 2 diabetes, especially in overweight adolescents and other populations. An upcoming report in the scientific journal Diabetes Care (link here) presents provocative data suggesting that continuous glucose monitoring (CGM) may distinguish forms of diabetes that occur because of loss of insulin secretion capacity (such as type 1) from forms due to insulin resistance (type 2). In particular, when CGM was performed when diabetes was very mild, insulin secretion defects were marked by increased blood glucose variability but normal fasting glucoses, whereas insulin resistance was marked by an overall increase in baseline (i.e. fasting) blood glucose levels.
–Andrew Norris