The impact of regulation of postprandial glucose in practice

Meal and post-meal periods define a postprandial stale covering about 66% o f day duration and characterized by a glucose and other nutrients influx in to the blood flow. Post-prandial hyperglycemia can be an early feature of glucose intolerance, indicating a failure to control for post-prandial glucose load, but mostly characterizes type 2 diabetes, reflecting quantitative and/or qualitative abnormalities in insulin secretion by pancreatic beta cells. Post-prandial hyperglycemia contributes to raise glycated hemoglobin (HbA1c ) level, which as an indicator of total glycemic load, is tightly correlate d with the incidence of micro-and macroangiopathy in type 2 diabetes. It ca n induce or deteriorate fasting hyperglycemia and be associated with coagul ation activation and/or lipid metabolism abnormalities, the latter being co nsidered as cardiovascular risk factors, even in non diabetic populations. Therefore caring for post-prandial glucose regulation is particularly relev ant in glucose intolerant and type 2 diabetic patients. Accordingly, severa l pharmacological treatments have been designed, among which repaglinide re cently emerged as an efficient, safe and convenient regulator of post-prand ial glycemia.