Current evidence shows that the real-time continuous glucose monitoring system has a beneficial effect on glycaemic control in adult diabetes patients, without an increase in the incidence of hypoglycaemia. Studies in well-selected patient groups (pregnancy, history of severe hypoglycaemias, Type 2 diabetes) are lacking.

SD(total) is a conveniently measurable parameter to express glycemic variability in patients with inadequate control with intensive insulin therapy. Patients with T1DM and long-lasting T2DM have the highest glycemic variability.

GA-pyridine accumulates in the mesangium in human renal disease, in particular in disorders with mesangial involvement. Further studies should elucidate whether mesangial GA-pyridine plays a role in the progression of glomerular damage.

Pentosidine accumulates in non-diabetic proteinuric kidneys in damaged tubules, and renoprotective treatment by angiotensin-converting enzyme (ACE) inhibitors inhibits AGE accumulation, supporting a relationship between abnormal renal protein trafficking, proteinuria-induced tubular damage and tubular pentosidine accumulation. Future studies, applying specific AGE inhibitors, should be conducted to provide insight into the pathophysiological significance of renal AGEs in non-diabetic renal disease.

BackgroundOxidative stress plays an important role in the course and eventual outcome in a majority of patients admitted to the intensive care unit (ICU). Markers to estimate oxidative stress are not readily available in a clinical setting. AGEs accumulation has been merely described in chronic conditions, but can also occur acutely due to oxidative stress. Since AGEs have emerged to be stable end products, these can be a marker of oxidative stress. Skin autofluorescence (AF) is a validated marker of tissue content of AGEs. We hypothesized that AGEs accumulate acutely in ICU patients.MethodsWe performed an observational prospective study in a medical surgical ICU in a university affiliated teaching hospital. All consecutively admitted ICU patients in a 2 month period were included. Skin AF was measured using an AGE reader in 35 consecutive ICU patients > 18 yrs. As a comparison, historical data of a control group (n = 231) were used. These were also used to calculate age-adjusted AF-levels (AFadj). Values are expressed as median and interquartile range [P25-P75]. Differences between groups were tested by non parametric tests. P < 0.05 was considered statistically significant.ResultsAFadj values were higher in ICU patients (0.33 [0.00 - 0.68]) than in controls (-0.07 [-0.29 - 0.24]; P < 0.001). No differences in skin AFadj were observed between acute or planned admissions, or presence of sepsis, nor was skin AFadj related to severity of disease as estimated by APACHE-II score, length of ICU, hospital stay or mortality.ConclusionAcute AGE accumulation in ICU patients was shown in this study, although group size was small. This can possibly reflect oxidative stress in ICU patients. Further studies should reveal whether AGE-accumulation will be a useful parameter in ICU patients and whether skin AF has a predictive value for outcome, which was not shown in this small study.