The effectiveness of continuous glucose monitoring (CGM) in maintaining glycaemic control in type 1 (T1DM) and type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM) has been well demonstrated. However, the degree of glycaemic variability (GV) in people with type 3c diabetes mellitus (T3cDM) has not been fully explored using CGM. This study aims to evaluate GV in T3cDM participants and compare it to T1DM and T2DM.
Participants were grouped according to type of diabetes. GV, defined as percentage coefficient of variation (%CV), and other glycaemic indices were obtained using CGM (FreeStyle Libre, Abbott, Australia) from 82 participants across all three cohorts over a 14-day period. Comparison of baseline characteristics and GV were performed across all groups. Correlation of GV with C-peptide values, and whether pancreatic supplementation had an effect on GV were also assessed in the T3cDM cohort.
GV of T3cDM participants was within the recommended target of less than %CV 36% (P= 0.004). T3cDM participants had the lowest GV amongst the three groups (P= 0.001). There was a trend for lower C-peptide levels to be associated with higher GV in T3cDM participants (P= 0.22). Pancreatic enzyme supplementation in T3cDM participants did not have an effect on GV (P= 0.664).
Although T3cDM participants were the least variable, they had the highest mean glucose levels and estimated HbA1c, which suggests that the concept of ‘brittle’ diabetes in T3cDM is not supported by the results of CGM in this study and may be leading to poorer glycaemic control.

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