Glucose Variability Linked to Increased Mortality Risk in Hospitalized Patients

Increased glucose variability (G) is associated with longer hospitalizations and increased mortality risk in patients both with and without diabetes, according to the results of a recent study.

Although common in hospitalized patients, the prognostic implications of GV are not well understood.
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For their study, researchers assessed a cohort of 20,303 patients, of whom 8565 had diabetes. Mean hospital stay duration was longer in individuals with higher coefficient of variance (CV) or standard deviation (SD) tertiles in both patients with and without diabetes.

In-hospital mortality was associated with higher tertiles of CV (4%, 10%, 19%) and SD (4%, 11%, 21%) in patients without DM and with DM (3%, 5%, 10%; and 2%, 4%, 9%, respectively).

In patients without diabetes, higher CV and SD tertiles were associated with mortality at the end of follow-up, while only higher SD tertiles were associated with mortality and the end of follow-up in patients with diabetes.

“In hospitalized patients with and without DM, increased GV is associated with longer hospitalization and increased short- and long-term mortality.”

—Michael Potts

Reference:

Akirov A, Diker-Cohen T, Masri-Iraqu H, Shimon I. High glucose variability increases mortality risk in hospitalized patients. JCEM. 2017;102(7)2230-2241.