Gastric Myoelectrical Activity in Patients with Diabetes

Abstract

This descriptive, correlational study investigated the associations among gastric myoelectrical activity (GMA), upper gastrointestinal (GI) symptoms, and glucose control.The study also attempted to determine whether any relationship existed between upper GI symptoms, glucose control, age, or length of diagnosis and pattern of GMA identified using electrogastrography (EGG).A total of 25 persons participated in the study. The sample was comprised of 7 healthy controls, 5 patients diagnosed with type 1 diabetes, and 13 patients diagnosed with type 2 diabetes. Demographic data, a health history, blood sampling, and assessment of historical and current upper GI symptoms were obtained. Electrogastrography was performed for 30 minutes in the fasting state and continued at 30-minute intervals for a total of 1-1/2 hours post-prandially. Data from the fasting, 30-minute post-prandial period, and 120-minute post-prandial periods were analyzed for the study.For research question one, non-significant p values were confirmed during fasting (p = .14) and 120-minutes post-prandial (p = .11). A significant p value was noted at 30-minutes post-prandial (p = .04). This suggests that no difference exist between patterns of GMA in healthy subjects and patients with diabetes except during the period immediately after eating. No significant differences in the pattern of GMA were identified in type 1 versus type 2 diabetic patients during any sampling period (p = .81, .49, and .88, respectively).Research question 2 looked at GMA during 3 periods. At the end of the fasting period (period 1), there were 7 patients with normogastria, 10 with bradygastria, and 1 vi with tachygastria. The bradygastric group reported greater mean scores for symptom presence and severity historically and during the fasting period on all upper GI signs and symptoms. During period 1, mean scores for satiety on the TSS scale were the only variable yielding any significant result (p = .04). For this sample, no relationship was found between the three patterns of GMA and acute blood glucose, metabolic control, age, or length of diagnosis in patients with diabetes who were fasting. During the first post-prandial period (30 minutes post meal; period 2), 4 subjects were normogastric, 7were bradygastric, and 7 were tachygastric. There were no significant differences found between the distributions of scores for the variables under study and patterns of GMA.During the 120-minute post prandial period (period 5), 6 subjects were normogastric, 7were bradygastric, and 5 were tachygastric. There were no significant differences found between the distributions of mean scores for the variables under study and patterns of GMA.In conclusion, findings of this study support the potential use of EGG as a screening tool in the detection of patterns of GMA in healthy and diabetic individuals.Using EGG, gastric myoelectrical activity can be identified in both healthy controls and patients diagnosed with diabetes. Further studies are needed to generate data that can be used to ...