A system model of oral glucose absorption: Validation on gold standard data

A reliable model of glucose absorption after oral ingestion may facilitate simulation as well as pathophysiological studies. One of the difficulties for the development and quality assessment of such models has been the lack of gold standard data for their validation. Thus, while data on plasma concentrations of glucose are available, the rates of appearance in plasma of ingested glucose (Ra) were not available to develop such models. Here we utilize the recent availability of Ra data, estimated with a model-independent multiple tracer technique, to formulate a system model of intestinal glucose absorption. Two published and two new models are tested on this new data set. One of the two new models performed best: it is nonlinear, describes the Ra data well and its parameters are estimated with good precision. This model has important potential both in simulation contexts, e.g., it can be incorporated in whole-body models of the glucose regulatory system, as well as in physiological and clinical studies to quantitatively characterize possible impairment of glucose absorption in particular populations such as elderly and diabetic individuals.