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Diabetes mellitus is a growing healthcare problem internationally, and poses a major burden from both a individual and societal perspective. Diabetes causes potentially life-threatening complications that are preventable if the disease is detected early and appropriate interventions are put in place. Early detection is therefore imperative for preventing diabetes-related morbidity and mortality. Current methods of detection, including the oral glucose tolerance test (OGTT), and measures of fasting plasma glucose, glycated hemoglobin (HbA(1c)), or glycated albumin, can be time-consuming and uncomfortable for patients. Myoinositol can be measured in urine and has been found to be elevated in patients with diabetes and glucose intolerance; it has thus proven useful as a marker for the early detection of these conditions. Lucica MI is a diagnostic kit for the measurement of urinary myoinositol; it is used to detect glucose intolerance and diabetes mellitus at an early stage in disease progression. The test is based on an enzymatic method that uses liquid reagents requiring no preparation. Clinical trial results demonstrate that the test could be used to detect not only diabetes mellitus, but also to distinguish impaired fasting glucose and impaired glucose tolerance from normal glucose tolerance.

We assessed the possibility of using myo-inositol as a marker of glucose intolerance.We measured urinary myo-inositol enzymatically before and 2 h after a 75-g oral glucose tolerance test in 564 volunteers, who were divided into four groups [normal glucose tolerance (NGT), impaired fasting glucose (IFG), impaired glucose tolerance (IGT), and diabetes mellitus (DM)]. Furthermore, we classified NGT into NGT-A (2-h blood glucose120 mg/dl and 2-h glucosuria50 mg/dl) and NGT-B (remaining NGT subjects). We then compared deltamyo-inositol (myo-inositol/creatinine ratio: 2-h after glucose load--before load) of each group to investigate the relationship between glucose intolerance and deltamyo-inositol.The glucose tolerance of NGT-B appeared to have deteriorated compared with NGT-A as determined by blood glucose, insulin, and glucosuria. There was very little effect of gender or age on deltamyo-inositol in NGT-A. deltamyo-inositol was significantly higher than that in NGT-A (0.5+/-7.1 mg/g Cr) not only in IFG (8.7+/-19.5 mg/g Cr, P0.0001), IGT (14.8+/-22.9 mg/g Cr, P0.0001) and DM (79.5+/-37.1 mg/g Cr, P0.0001), but in NGT-B (7.4+/-12.7 mg/g Cr, P0.0001). With 2 mg/g Cr as a tentative cut-off for deltamyo-inositol to detect NGT-A, sensitivity and specificity were 68% and 72%, respectively.The deltamyo-inositol can be use of a non-invasive and sensitive marker for glucose intolerance.

Background: To determine myo-inositol more accurately, we improved the enzymatic cycling method. Methods: We screened myo-inositol dehydrogenase (MIDH; EC.1.1.1.18) from Flavobacterium sp., which was highly specific to myo-inositol. We measured urinary myo-inositol/creatinine ratio 2 h after 75-g oral glucose tolerance test (2 h MI) of 71 volunteers, and investigated the relationship between diabetes and urinary myo-inositol concentration. Results: The calibration curve was linear (r=1.00) up to 2000 μmol/l, and the detection limit was 10 μmol/l. Within-run and between-run CVs were 0.5–1.1% and 0.4–1.3%, respectively. The 2 h MI of impaired fasting glycemia (IFG; 65.1±46.6 mg/g Cr, P