The Effect of Pancreatic Insufficiency on Hypoglycemia and Glucagon Response in Children With Cystic Fibrosis

The exact underlying mechanism of hypoglycemia in CF is still unknown. Some recent studies support the delayed and prolonged insulin secretion and impaired counterregulatory hormone response as the reason of reactive hypoglycemia, whereas the others argued an additive effect of an intrinsic factor.

However, the weakness of these limited studies is that nearly all of them included CF patients who had pancreatic insufficiency (PI) and could not reveal the mechanism of hypoglycemia seen in those without PI. In addition, there were no healthy controls for comparison of glucagon secretion in CF patients with hypoglycemia. Moreover, the studies that evaluate the role of glucagon in hypoglycemic CF patients were performed in hypoglycemic adult patients with abnormal glucose tolerance (AGT) and the delayed and prolonged insulin release is expected to be more likely as the reason of hypoglycemia in this setting. Previously, the investigators had demonstrated isolated hypoglycemia in some of the pediatric CF patients during OGTT. In this study, the investigators aimed to further investigate possible mechanisms of hypoglycemia. The investigators hypothesized that the mechanism of isolated hypoglycemia might be different from hypoglycemia seen in patients with AGT. Furthermore, the investigators evaluated the role of pancreatic insufficiency in hypoglycemia of CF patients by analyzing glucose, insulin and glucagon response to a glucose load in CF patients with and without PI.