The aim of this study to determine whether long-term intra-individual variability in fasting glucose (FG) during young adulthood is associated with incident diabetes, cardiovascular disease (CVD) and mortality, including two researchers from the University of Alabama at Birmingham School of Public Health. Drs. Beth Lewis, and April Carson, are both in the department of epidemiology.

Included were participants from the Coronary Artery Risk Development in Young Adults (CARDIA) study, ages 18-30 years at baseline (1985-1986) and followed with eight examinations for up to 30 years. Long-term glucose variability was assessed using the coefficient of variation (CV) and the absolute difference between successive FG measurements. For participants who developed any event, FG variability measurement was censored at the examination prior to event ascertainment. Researchers estimated HRs for incident diabetes, cardiovascular disease (CVD) and mortality with adjustment for demographics, baseline FG, change in FG and time-varying education, smoking, alcohol consumption, body mass index (BMI), physical activity, systolic blood pressure (BP), BP medications, low-density lipoprotein (LDL)-cholesterol and cholesterol medications.

The results suggest that higher intra-individual FG variability during young adulthood before the onset of diabetes is associated with incident diabetes, CVD and mortality.