Objective To observe the changes of blood insulin level in the elderly patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) with different nutritional status at the acute episodes. Methods We assessed nutritional status of 42 elderly patients with COPD (18 cases of malnourished, 20 cases of non-malnourished) at the acute episodes and of 15 healthy elderly subjects and detected their fasting blood glucose and insulin level. Results The fasting plasma glucose of the malnourished group and the non-...