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High blood glucose and excess body fat enhance pain sensitivity and weaken pain inhibition in healthy adults: a single-blind cross-over randomised controlled trial
Journal article   Open access   Peer reviewed

High blood glucose and excess body fat enhance pain sensitivity and weaken pain inhibition in healthy adults: a single-blind cross-over randomised controlled trial

D. Ye, T.J. Fairchild, L. Vo and P.D. Drummond
The Journal of Pain
2022
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Abstract

To investigate links between blood glucose, body fat mass and pain, the effects of acute hyperglycaemia on pain sensitivity and pain inhibition were examined in healthy adults with normal (n = 24) or excess body fat (n = 20) determined by dual-energy X-ray absorptiometry. Effects of hyperglycaemia on heart rate variability and reactive hyperaemia were also explored. For the overall sample, ingesting 75-g glucose enhanced pain sensitivity during 1-minute cold-water immersion of both feet (conditioning stimulus) and weakened the pain inhibitory effect of cold water on pressure pain thresholds (test stimulus). Exploratory subgroup analyses not adjusted for multiple comparisons suggested that this effect was limited to people with excess fat mass. In addition, acute hyperglycaemia suppressed resting heart rate variability only in people with excess fat mass. Furthermore, regardless of blood glucose levels, people with excess fat mass had weaker pain inhibition for pinprick after cold water and reported more pain during 5-minutes of static blood flow occlusion. Neither high blood glucose nor excess body fat affected pinprick-temporal summation of pain or reactive hyperaemia. Together, these findings suggest that hyperglycaemia and excess fat mass interfere with pain processing and autonomic function.

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Citation topics
1 Clinical & Life Sciences
1.43 Anesthesiology
1.43.135 Neuropathic Pain
Web Of Science research areas
Clinical Neurology
Neurosciences
ESI research areas
Neuroscience & Behavior
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