In this paper, researchers studied whether blood metabolic measures are associated with insufficient glycemic control and whether this association is influenced differentially by various diabetes drugs.
Metabolomics data of four independent type 2 diabetes cohorts from the Netherlands was used. Three cohorts provided data to examine the prospective association of metabolomic measures with diabetes progression. Twenty-six measures were associated with insufficient glycemic control, the strongest association was observed with glutamine. In drug-stratified analyses, associations with insufficient glycemic control were only mildly affected by different glucose-lowering drugs. In general, the data suggest that metabolomic measures that were previously shown to be associated with type 2 diabetes risk are also associated with worse glycemic control. Blood metabolomic measures were associated with present and future glycemic control and may thus provide relevant cues to identify those at increased risk of treatment failure.