Table 2.

REE and glucose and fatty acid oxidation in the fasted state and during insulin infusion before and during 2 week treatment with placebo, prednisolone 7.5 mg or prednisolone 30 mg

Test state	Pre-treatment	On treatment	p valuea	p valueb	p valuec
Basal REE (kJ kg−1 day−1)
Placebo	95 (86–110)	89 (86–98)	0.139	NA	NA
7.5	98 (91–107)	99 (92–109)
30	106 (91–114)	107 (98–110)
REE during clamp (kJ kg−1 day−1)
Placebo	102 (95–114)	100 (95–111)	0.352	NA	NA
7.5	105 (97–110)	106 (99–111)
30	111 (96–111)	109 (96–111)
Basal glucose oxidation (μmol kg−1 min−1)
Placebo	7.7 (4.9–9.0)	5.5 (4.2–8.0)	0.006	0.430	0.002
7.5	5.8 (3.0–8.5)	5.8 (3.2–12.6)
30	5.1 (3.0–7.7)	11.2 (7.7–14.6)
Glucose oxidation during clamp (μmol kg−1 min−1)
Placebo	20.3 (18.8–22.2)	19.0 (15.8–25.2)	0.133	NA	NA
7.5	19.6 (17.5–24.0)	16.1 (11.8–20.1)
30	19.4 (15.5–25.4)	20.0 (17.4–22.8)
Glucose oxidation during clamp (% of R d)
Placebo	11.4 (7.8–16.1)	9.0 (5.8–15.9)	<0.001	0.728	<0.001
7.5	9.4 (4.9–12.0)	9.3 (4.8–13.6)
30	8.5 (4.9–9.8)	25.1 (15.8–41.3)
Basal fatty acid oxidation (μmol kg−1 min−1)
Placebo	1.4 (1.2–1.5)	1.3 (1.2–1.8)	0.02	0.640	0.022
7.5	1.4 (1.2–1.6)	1.6 (1.1–1.7)
30	1.7 (1.5–1.9)	1.1 (1.0–1.5)
Fatty acid oxidation clamp (μmol kg−1 min−1)
Placebo	0.4 (0.1–0.6)	0.5 (0.1–0.7)	0.083	NA	NA
7.5	0.5 (0.1–0.7)	0.7 (0.3–1.0)
30	0.5 (0.2–0.8)	0.5 (0.2–0.7)

Data are medians (interquartile range)

Bonferroni correction was applied to correct for multiple testing

7.5, prednisolone 7.5 mg; 30, prednisolone 30 mg; NA, not available

^aBetween-group changes from baseline were tested by Kruskal–Wallis

^bPlacebo vs prednisolone 7.5 mg or ^c30 mg (post hoc testing by Mann–Whitney U in the case of a significant finding with Kruskal–Wallis)