Abstracts

Accuracy and performance of continuous glucose monitors in athletes

by JG Chase




Institution: University of Canterbury
Department:
Year: 2017
Keywords: Continuous glucose monitoring; Accuracy; Correlation; Exercise; Athlete; Field of Research::11 - Medical and Health Sciences::1103 - Clinical Sciences::110306 - Endocrinology; Field of Research::11 - Medical and Health Sciences::1106 - Human Movement and Sports Science::110604 - Sports Medicine
Posted: 02/01/2018
Record ID: 2198213
Full text PDF: http://hdl.handle.net/10092/14540


Abstract

Continuous glucose monitoring (CGM) devices, with their 15min measurement interval, allow blood glucose dynamics to be captured more frequently and less invasively than traditional measures of blood glucose concentration (BG). These devices are primarily designed for the use in type 1 and type 2 diabetic patients to aid BG regulation. However, because of their increased measurement frequency and reduced invasiveness CGM devices have been recently applied to other subject cohorts, such as intensive care patients and neonates. One unexamined cohort is athletes. Continuous monitoring of an athlete's BG has the potential to increase race performance, speed recovery, and aid training. However, before these benefits can be realised the accuracy and performance of CGM devices in active athletes must be evaluated. Two Ipro2 and one Guardian Real-time CGM devices (Medtronic Minimed, Northridge, CA, USA) were inserted into 10 subjects (resting HR<60 beats per minute (bpm), training 615h per week). For each participant a fasting continuous exercise test was carried out until failure, 90min, and glucoses boluses were given at 30min (0.5g/kg) and failure (1g/kg). Reference BG measurements were taken every 10min for the first 60min, every 5min until failure+30min and every 10min until failure+60min with an Abbott Optimum Xceed glucometer. Pre-glucose bolus, all sensors perform better compared to results seen in diabetic cohorts with median mean absolute relative difference (MARD) of 9.7%, 9.6% and 11.1% for the two Ipro2s and the Real-time, respectively. However, there is increased error post-bolus likely due to the gradient of BG change being higher, so the delay in transport to interstitial fluid and sensor results in a larger discrepancy from reference values. CGM devices agree very well with each other during rigorous exercise with median cross-correlation coefficients between 0.88 and 0.97 for the different sensor pairings. This good correlation between all three signals suggests the error between glucose measured by CGM and from blood is not random, but likely due to transport/uptake effects. As the interstitial fluid is the medium from which glucose enters muscle cells, this CGM value might be more useful than BG in determining glucose availability for athletes.