# Restoring awareness of hypoglycemia in type 1 diabetes

> **NIH NIH U01** · UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA · 2024 · $813,114

## Abstract

PROJECT SUMMARY / ABSTRACT
This application “Restoring awareness of hypoglycemia in type 1 diabetes” proposes to elucidate the
heterogeneity of impaired awareness of hypoglycemia (IAH) in type 1 diabetes through completion of a 24-month
Sequential Multiple Assignment Randomized Trial (SMART) designed to better inform our understanding of the
clinical and physiologic factors which contribute to restoration of counterregulatory defenses against
hypoglycemia in response to educational, technologic, and pharmacologic interventions. Given the persistent
barrier of hypoglycemia to the realization of achieving adequate glycemic control for most individuals with type
1 diabetes, there is a critical need to further understand the mechanisms contributing to hypoglycemia in type 1
diabetes in order to advance treatment approaches that may realize the benefits of near-normal glycemic control
without the accompanying risk for severe hypoglycemia. The present proposal aims 1) to determine whether
counterregulatory responses to a hyperinsulinemic hypoglycemic clamp can be restored in individuals with long
standing type 1 diabetes and IAH using an adaptive randomized clinical trial design implementing state-of-the-
art interventions including hypoglycemia avoidance education (standard-of-care; SOC), automated insulin
delivery with hybrid closed loop technology (HCL), and novel mini-dose glucagon (MDG) pharmacology; 2) to
determine the physiological factors associated with improved counterregulatory responses following intervention,
including but not limited to age, diabetes duration, and continuous glucose monitoring (CGM) metrics; and 3) to
validate a HypoA-Q short form questionnaire as a self-report measure for identifying IAH with measurement of
counterregulatory responses derived from the hypoglycemic clamp. The proposed SMART study design will
allow for rigorously determining both the degree of hypoglycemia avoidance necessary for improvement of
counterregulatory epinephrine and autonomic symptom responses to insulin-induced hypoglycemia, as well as
the additional factors such as age, diabetes duration, other CGM metrics, and validated IAH self-report that may
predict individual responsiveness to SOC, HCL, and MDG interventions.

## Key facts

- **NIH application ID:** 10708096
- **Project number:** 5U01DK135120-02
- **Recipient organization:** UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA
- **Principal Investigator:** Michael R Rickels
- **Activity code:** U01 (R01, R21, SBIR, etc.)
- **Funding institute:** NIH
- **Fiscal year:** 2024
- **Award amount:** $813,114
- **Award type:** 5
- **Project period:** 2022-09-25 → 2027-12-31

## Primary source

NIH RePORTER: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/10708096

## Citation

> US National Institutes of Health, RePORTER application 10708096, Restoring awareness of hypoglycemia in type 1 diabetes (5U01DK135120-02). Retrieved via AI Analytics 2026-05-25 from https://api.ai-analytics.org/grant/nih/10708096. Licensed CC0.

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