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Aim: To investigate whether the FreeStyle Libre, an intermittent scanning continuous glucose monitoring (isCGM) system, influences confidence in managing hypoglycemia in adults with type 1 diabetes., Materials and Methods: This longitudinal, observational study conducted at one facility included 121 adults with type 1 diabetes. Participants used the conventional finger-prick method for self-testing glucose before using isCGM. At baseline and 12 months after initiating isCGM, the Hypoglycemic Confidence Scale (HCS), Diabetes Treatment Satisfaction Questionnaire (DTSQ), and HbA1c were performed. At 12 months, the percentage of individuals utilizing isCGM trend arrows for glucose management was observed. The primary endpoint was hypoglycemic confidence change attributed to using isCGM., Results: After using isCGM, HCS scores improved significantly from 2.89 (2.56, 3.22) to 3.00 (2.20, 3.33) (p < 0.001); median (25%, 75%). Among participants with level 3 hypoglycemia at baseline, hypoglycemic confidence during sleep (p < 0.05), in social situations (p < 0.05), and in avoiding serious hypoglycemia-related problems (p < 0.05) were improved. Despite hypoglycemia risk, participants could continue daily activities by using isCGM (p < 0.05), and sixty-nine percent utilized trend arrows effectively., Conclusion: Using isCGM improved hypoglycemic confidence among adults with type 1 diabetes. Data analysis indicated that people with type 1 diabetes could live more freely and better manage hypoglycemia using isCGM., Competing Interests: Declaration of Competing Interest The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper., (Copyright © 2023 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.)

We investigated the association between susceptible HLA and BMI change rate from diagnosis of diabetes to diagnosis of slowly progressive type 1 diabetes in Japanese diabetic patients. Subjects with the HLA DRB1*04:05-DQB1*04:01 haplotype were more likely to show weight loss than those without. This HLA haplotype might affect weight loss., (Copyright © 2017 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.)

Using a database of patients with type 1 (n=1675) and type 2 (n=2259) diabetes diagnosed before the age of 30 years at the Diabetes Center, Tokyo Women's Medical University (TWMU), in which such Japanese patients have been registered at the time of first visit since the 1960s, we performed a hospital-based study over the last 40 years to clarify time-course changes in clinical features of type 1 and type 2 diabetes diagnosed before the age of 30 years. Type 2 diabetes had a male dominancy, while there has been a female dominancy in patients with type 1 diabetes as in previous reports of Japanese childhood-onset type 1 diabetes. Such dominances had been continued over the last 40 years. The number of patients with type 2 diabetes and with a past history of obesity increased with time. The age at which type 2 diabetes was diagnosed was suggested to have been getting lower with time, whereas that of type 1 diabetes has been higher with time. There was no marked difference in family history of diabetes in the first-degree relatives of patients with type 2 diabetes, regardless of the presence or absence of a past history of obesity. More female patients with type 2 diabetes diagnosed before the age of 15 years had mothers with type 2 diabetes compared to corresponding male patients.

We recently identified a naturally occurring soluble form of RAGE (the receptor for advanced glycation endproducts, receptor for AGE) in cultured human vascular cells, and named it endogenous secretory RAGE (esRAGE). esRAGE is generated by alternative RNA splicing and is able to capture AGE, and exerts protection against AGE-induced endothelial cell injury. In the present study, the presence of esRAGE in human circulation was demonstrated for the first time, and a highly sensitive and specific sandwich ELISA system for esRAGE was developed to see whether esRAGE could be related to an individual resistance to the development of diabetic vascular complications. Sera from 47 type 1 diabetic subjects without clinical nephropathy (urinary albumin excretion <300mg/g creatinine) and 55 healthy controls were analyzed by the ELISA. Circulating esRAGE concentrations in diabetic patients with simple and proliferative retinopathy (0.09+/-0.02ng/mL, n=16 and 0.08+/-0.02ng/mL, n=8, respectively) were significantly lower than in those without retinopathy (0.13+/-0.06ng/mL, n=23). The results indicate that esRAGE can be a useful biomarker to indicate individual variations in susceptibility to diabetic retinopathy.

To know how the blood glucose level obtained by SMBG are recognized by type 1 diabetic children with relatively stable HbA(1c), they were requested to record the levels estimated before SMBG, and the estimated and SMBG levels of blood glucose were compared. In error grid analysis, the children overestimated the blood glucose level when it was lower than around 140 mg/dl, and underestimated it when it was higher than 140 mg/dl in daily life. Seventy-nine percents of the results were included in areas A and B in the error grid analysis. It is likely that the predictability of blood glucose levels in daily life was not difficult for the children with relatively stable HbA(1c) (6.9 +/- 0.5%). Error grid analysis also showed that the results were changed to higher ranks in the second half of this study period. This tendency was observed irrespective of the SMBG level, indicating the learning effects.

The age related incidence rate of insulin-dependent diabetes mellitus shows a bimodal distribution, not only in Caucasians but also in Japanese. To evaluate the onset age-related autoimmune profile at presentation in insulin-dependent diabetes mellitus (IDDM), glutamic acid decarboxylase (GAD) autoantibody, islet cell antibody (ICA), and insulin autoantibody (IAA) were measured in 137 newly diagnosed Japanese IDDM patients with onset ages between 0-29 years. The prevalence of GAD autoantibody was significantly increased from the lowest (32%) in the 0-5 years onset age group to 75% in the 13-19 years onset age group (P < 0.05), whereas the IAA prevalence significantly decreased from the peak (48%) in the 6-12 years onset age group to 10% in the 20-29 years onset age group (P < 0.05). The ICA prevalence was increased from the lowest (32%) in the 0-5 years onset age group to the highest (53%) in the 20-29 years onset age group similar to that for the GAD autoantibody. Such results demonstrate that there was age-related autoimmune characteristics at presentation of IDDM in Japanese as well as in Caucasians.