ScHARR researchers collaborate on a European research project to raise awareness of the impact of hypoglycaemia on people’s lives

Researchers from the University of Sheffield’s School of Health and Related Research (ScHARR) and Department of Oncology and Metabolism are collaborating with partners as part of a European research project to provide evidence about hypoglycaemia.

Hypoglycaemia is a common and potentially serious side effect of insulin treatment in diabetes. Their aim is to alleviate the burden and consequences for people living with diabetes and healthcare systems in general as part of the Hypo-RESOLVE project.


This is a really exciting project which has brought together leading international players from academia, industry and members of the public to raise awareness of the impact of hypoglycaemia on people’s lives and to build evidence-based data to help us formulate answers to key questions about the mechanisms that cause it.

Professor Simon Heller, Insigneo member

co-coordinator of the project and Sheffield lead, Director of Research and Development and Honorary Consultant Physician at Sheffield Teaching Hospitals Foundation Trust


Since the £23.6m project launched in 2018, more than 20 leading international partners from academia, industry and civil society have joined forces, including clinicians from Sheffield Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust and internationally renowned health economists and modellers from ScHARR.

Professor Heller is supported by colleagues from ScHARR, Dr Jill Carlton, Dr Philip Powell, Professor Alan Brennan and Dan Pollard.


It is fantastic to be involved in this project which will undoubtedly make a real difference to the lives of those people who experience hypoglycaemia.

Some of the work in ScHARR includes developing a new questionnaire that can be used to measure the impact of hypoglycaemia for use in clinical trials and cohort studies.

By understanding how, and in which ways, hypoglycaemia affects people’s quality of life, people who make decisions about healthcare will know what to measure when they are testing new treatments designed to reduce the impact of hypoglycaemia on quality of life.

Dr Carlton

Research fellow


Hypo-RESOLVE (Hypoglycaemia – REdefining SOLutions for better liVEs) aims to provide researchers and clinicians with more validated data about the condition by

  • creating a sustainable clinical database
  • conducting studies to understand the underlying mechanisms of hypoglycaemia better
  • performing a series of statistical analyses to define predictors and consequences of hypoglycaemia
  • calculating the financial cost of hypoglycaemia in European countries

During the first half of the project, the Hypo-RESOLVE partners have made significant progress in achieving the project’s objectives.

In on-going experimental work, the consortium has already established a secure, sustainable database with data from more than 100 clinical trials comprising almost 60,000 individuals to confirm and refine an evidence-based classification of hypoglycaemia.

With this statistical power as a baseline, it will be possible to make valid statements about the glucose thresholds below which hypoglycaemia constitutes a serious risk for people living with diabetes.

To find out more about Hypo-RESOLVE, visit their website or follow them on Twitter.

The University of Sheffield and Insigneo logo

Contact us

Email: info@insigneo.org

Telephone: +44 114 222 0158

Centres of excellence

The University's cross-faculty research centres harness our interdisciplinary expertise to solve the world's most pressing challenges.