Could Acetaminophen Cause Falsely Elevated Glucose Readings?

Acetaminophen may cause continuous glucose monitors (CGM) to falsely indicate higher glucose levels, according to a recent study.

While the FDA still prefers finger-stick glucose monitor results over CGM results when making treatment decisions, the development of closed-loop artificial pancreas systems which use CGM readings to automatically administer doses of insulin make understanding how acetaminophen affects these readings a priority.
________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

RELATED CONTENT
FDA Further Restricts Acetaminophen Use
Acetaminophen Linked to Rare, Deadly Skin Reactions
________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

To further explore this relationship, researchers followed 40 patients (mean age 28.5 years) with type 1 diabetes who were given 1000 mg of acetaminophen and used finger-stick monitors to check their blood glucose levels at .5, 1, 2, 4, 6, and 8 hours. These results were compared to CGM readings from approximately the same time frames.

Overall, readings from the finger-stick and CGM meters were significantly different over the 8-hour timeframe. Specifically, 3 patients with blood glucose values of less than 70 mg/dL had significantly higher CGM readings (63 vs 138 mg/dL, 46 vs 175 mg/dL, and 51 vs 184 mg/dL) and 10 patients saw CGM readings over 180 mg/dL when their true glucose levels were more than 100 mg/dL lower.

The effect was greatest at 2 hours after ingestion of the acetaminophen and diminished over the 8 hour period.

The study was published in Diabetes Care.

—Michael Potts

Reference:

Maahs DM, DeSalvo D, Pyle L, et al. Effect of acetaminophen on cgm glucose in an outpatient setting. Diabetes Care. August 2015 [epub ahead of print]. doi: 10.2337/dc15-1096.