Bbackground: This study aimed to evaluate the accuracy of Dexcom G6 (DG6) and FreeStyle Libre-2 (FSL2) during aerobic training and HIIT in individuals with type 1 diabetes (T1D).
Methods: Twenty-six males (mean age 29.3 ± 6.3 years and mean duration of diabetes 14.9 ± 6.1 years) participated in this study. Interstitial glucose levels were measured using DG6 and FSL2, while plasma glucose levels were measured every 10 min using YSI 2500 as the reference for glucose measurements in this study. The measurements began 20 min before the start of exercise and continued for 20 min after exercise. Seven measurements were taken for each subject and exercise.
Results: Both DG6 and FSL2 devices showed significant differences compared to YSI glucose data for both aerobic and HIIT exercises. Continuous glucose monitoring (CGM) devices exhibited superior performance during HIIT than aerobic training, with DG6 showing a mean absolute relative difference (MARD) of 14.03% versus 31.98%, respectively. In the comparison between the two devices, FSL2 demonstrated significantly higher effectiveness in aerobic training, yet its performance was inferior to DG6 during HIIT. According to the 40/40 criteria, both sensors performed similarly, with marks over 93% for all ranges and both exercises, and above 99% for HIIT and in the >180 mg/dL range, which is in accordance with FDA guidelines.
Conclusions: The findings suggest that the accuracy of DG6 and FSL2 deteriorates during and immediately after exercise, but remains acceptable for both devices during HIIT. However, accuracy is compromised with DG6 during aerobic exercise. This study is the first to compare the accuracy of two CGMs, DG6 and FSL2, during two exercise modalities, using plasma glucose YSI measurements as the gold standard for comparisons.