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Completed Not applicable Interventional Results available

Long Duration Activity and Metabolic Control After Spinal Cord Injury

ClinicalTrials.gov ID: NCT03139344

Public ClinicalTrials.gov record NCT03139344. Field values are reproduced from the official study page; the official ClinicalTrials.gov record remains the source of truth for eligibility, enrollment, and contact information.

ClinicalTrials.gov public records Last synced Sep 5, 2026, 10:17 PM EDT

Data is sourced from official ClinicalTrials.gov public API records. Always review the official ClinicalTrials.gov record for the latest information.

Brief summary

Reproduced verbatim from the official ClinicalTrials.gov record. Not medical advice.

Skeletal muscle is the largest endocrine organ in the body, playing an indispensable role in glucose homeostasis. Spinal cord injury (SCI) prevents skeletal muscle from carrying out this important function. Dysregulation of glucose metabolism precipitates high rates of metabolic syndrome, diabetes, and other secondary health conditions (SHCs) of SCI. These SHCs exert a negative influence on health-related quality of life (HRQOL). New discoveries support that a low level of activity throughout the day offers a more effective metabolic stimulus than brief, episodic exercise bouts. The proposed study will translate this emerging concept to the population of individuals with SCI by using low-force, long-duration electrical muscle stimulation to subsidize daily activity levels. Recently, we demonstrated that this type of stimulation up-regulates key genes that foster an oxidative, insulin-sensitive phenotype in paralyzed muscle. We will now test whether this type of activity can improve glucose homeostasis and metabolic function in patients with chronic paralysis. We hypothesize that improvements in metabolic function will be accompanied by a reduction in SHCs and a concomitant improvement in self-reported HRQOL. The long-term goal of this research is to develop a rehabilitation strategy to protect the musculoskeletal health, metabolic function, and health-related quality of life of people living with complete SCI.

Study identification

NCT ID
NCT03139344
Recruitment status
Completed
Study type
Interventional
Phase
Not applicable
Lead sponsor
Richard K Shields
Other
Enrollment
89 participants

Conditions and interventions

Eligibility (public fields only)

Age range
18 Years and older
Sex
All
Healthy volunteers
Healthy volunteers not accepted

This page does not interpret eligibility. Detailed inclusion and exclusion criteria are on the official ClinicalTrials.gov record.

Study timeline

Start date
Jul 31, 2015
Primary completion
Mar 31, 2022
Completion
Mar 31, 2022
Last update posted
Feb 15, 2023

2015 – 2022

United States locations

U.S. sites
1
U.S. states
1
U.S. cities
1
Facility City State ZIP Site status
University of Iowa Iowa City Iowa 52242

Site contact phone numbers, emails, and investigator names are intentionally not displayed here. Open the official ClinicalTrials.gov record for site contact information.

About this trial record page

What this page shows
Public field values for ClinicalTrials.gov record NCT03139344, including study identification, conditions, interventions, eligibility (age, sex, healthy volunteer), timeline, and U.S. site list.
What this page does not do
No medical advice, eligibility judgments, treatment recommendations, study quality scoring, or AI-generated medical summaries. No site contact phone numbers, emails, or investigator names.
Where the data comes from
Sourced from the official ClinicalTrials.gov public API. The official record is the source of truth.
Last refresh
Last update posted Feb 15, 2023 · Synced Sep 5, 2026

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The complete protocol, eligibility criteria, and contact information for NCT03139344 live on ClinicalTrials.gov.

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