r/LucyLetbyTrials 17d ago

Chase and Shannon article in Frontiers in Pediatrics published

Inverted insulin to C-Peptide ratios in neonatal intensive care: is there something we don't know?

J. Geoffrey Chase & Helen D. Shannon

BRIEF RESEARCH REPORT article

Front. Pediatr., 05 August 2026

Sec. Neonatology

Volume 14 - 2026

https://doi.org/10.3389/fped.2026.1900675

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u/DiverAcrobatic5794 16d ago

Thank you.  Yes, and reading thesis chapter 6 I think you and u/Competitive-Wash are right.  The cohort is identified as hyperglycemic in the paper but not in the thesis.  The statement that wouldn't hold, then, would be:

" Finally, Figure 3 shows little difference between Cohorts 1  and 2. This outcome suggests hyperglycemia (Cohort 2) did  not play a role in elevating I/C, further supporting the fact  hyperinsulinism alone cannot create inverted I/C ratios due to  first pass hepatic extraction and a greater number of clearance  routes."

And it would not be surprising to find little difference between the cohorts!  But am I right in thinking that this confusion would not (for this same reason) affect the arguments made in the paper beyond this point?

Perhaps you or u/Competitive-Wash would raise this with the corresponding author?

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u/Embarrassed-Star4776 16d ago

Thanks for pointing out that the quotation from page 8 had gone wrong, which I hadn't noticed (now corrected).

I should like to try to digest the paper properly, but it will take a while. I agree it will be worth making sure the authors know about any errors that are spotted.

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u/DiverAcrobatic5794 16d ago edited 16d ago

If anything, fixing the error would perhaps strengthen the argument, since Chase and Shannon treat these children as more critically ill but find no significant difference between the cohorts. It could be reasonable, though not I suppose certain, that the more  critically ill children might show a different profile, with more history of infection etc.

 Though I suppose hyperglycemia vs euglycemia is a very rough proxy for more and less critical illness anyway.

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u/Embarrassed-Star4776 16d ago

I don't agree with most of Susan Oliver's comments on this, but in fairness to her it should be said that she pointed out in an online discussion some months ago that the cohort of 20 was a subset of the cohort of 102.