A personalized antidiabetic therapy is not yet part of the official guidelines of professional societies for clinical practice. The aim of this study was to evaluate the serum C-peptide and plasma glucose levels in patients with type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM) after oral administration of whey proteins.
Sixteen overweight T2DM Caucasians with good glycemic control and with preserved fasting serum C-peptide levels (>200 nmol/l) were enrolled in this study. Two oral stimulation tests-one with 75 g of glucose (OGTT) and the other with 75 g of whey proteins (OWIST) were administered for assessing serum C-peptide and plasma glucose levels in each participant.
Both oral tests induced similar pattern of C-peptide secretion, with a peak at 90 min. The serum C-peptide peak concentration was 2.91 +/- 0.27 nmol/l in OWIST, which was 22% lower than in OGTT.
Similarly, the C-peptide iAUC(0-180) were 32% lower in the OWIST than in the OGTT (p<0.01). Contrary to OGTT the OWIST did not cause a significant increase of glycemia (p<0.01).
Our study showed that the OWIST represents a useful tool in estimation of stimulated serum C-peptide levels in patients with T2DM.