Jellybeans for GTT?

Q I am looking for an article about glucose tolerance testing using jellybeans. Can you help me?

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A Two studies have looked at the use of jellybeans as a substitute for a liquid 50-gram glucose load for the glucose tolerance test. (1,2) Each of these

Given these restrictions, Boyd's (1) dose of 18 jellybeans proved to be insufficient to achieve a glucose concentration equal to that of the liquid glucose, but Lamar's (2) dose of 28 jelly beans was effective. Both studies used a specific brand of jellybean composed of sugar, corn syrup, modified cornstarch and dextrose. This is a different composition from the liquid test beverages, and might act in a different way at a higher test load used for nongestational diabetes testing, or at a time interval other than one hour.

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Another defect of the studies was that the incidence of diabetes in the test population was so low that the sensitivity and specificity of the jellybean test load could not be assessed reliably. Lamar concludes his paper: "A recommendation for wider use awaits the results of further research to determine whether jellybeans prove equal to the 50-gram glucose beverage for the detection of gestational diabetes mellitus." (2)

On the positive side, jellybeans were tolerated better than the glucose liquid by the test subjects.

References

1. Boyd KL, Ross EK, Sherman SJ. Jellybeans as an alternative to a cola beverage containing fifty grams of glucose. Am J Obstet Gynecol. December, 1995;173:1889-1892.

2. Lamar ME, Kuehl TJ, Cooney AT, Gayle LJ, Holleman S, Allen SR. Jellybeans as an alternative to a 50-gram glucose beverage for gestational diabetes screening. Am J Obstet Gynecol. November, 1999;181:1154-1157.

--Daniel M. Baer, MD

Professor Emeritus

Department of Pathology

Oregon Health and Science University

Portland, OR

Edited by Daniel M. Baer, MD