Background: Insulin resistance (IR) precedes type 2 diabetes, but tests used to detect it in clinical settings reported poor reproducibility. We assessed the reliability of the [(13)C]glucose breath test ((13)C-GBT) in a sample of subjects without diabetes. Repeatability of the test was compared with that of other IR surrogates derived from the fasting or oral glucose tolerance test (OGTT).
Subjects and methods: Eighty-six healthy volunteers received an oral load of 75 g of glucose in 150 mL of water followed by 1.5 mg/kg of [U-(13)C]glucose in 50 mL of water. Breath and blood samples were collected at baseline and at 10, 20, 30, 60, 90, 120, 150, and 180 min following the glucose load; the same procedure was repeated within 1 week. The enrichment of breath (13)CO2 was measured by ratio mass spectrometry and expressed as percentage oxidized dose at a given time period. Intrasubject variability was assessed with Bland-Altman plots and coefficients of variation (CVs).
Results: The overall CV of the (13)C-GBT was 12.99±11.61%, compared with 18.42% of fasting insulin, 19.44% for homeostasis model assessment, 17.06% of the composite insulin sensitivity index, and 29.99% for insulin in the 2-h oral glucose tolerance test. The variability of the (13)C-GBT tended to be higher in lean (17.40%) than in overweight (10.17%) and obese (12.61%) individuals.
Conclusions: The variability of the (13)C-GBT is lower than that of other IR surrogates, making it a reproducible method to estimate insulin sensitivity in overweight and obese adults without diabetes. Because the individuals did not have diabetes but were within a high range of insulin sensitivity, the test should have application in clinical and population-based studies, given the evidence for the utility and limitations of this surrogate.