Fasting glucose homeostasis in the adaptation to chronic
nutritional deprivation in rats.
Harsha, R., Rao.
Department of Medicine, University of Pittsburgh School of
Medicine, Pittsburgh PA (U.S.A.)
APStracts 2:0025E, 1995.
The hormonal basis for the metabolic paradox of relative hypoglycemia
despite insulinopenia and insulin resistance in chronic nutritional
deprivation, was studied in weanling rats restricted to 60% of ad
libitum intake over eight weeks (n=12 each). Lower insulin and
glucagon levels were observed in both peripheral and portal blood
(p=0.0016) in the malnourished rats on multivariate analysis of
variance, indicating decreased islet secretion. Peripheral and portal
hormone levels were proportionately similar, indicating that hepatic
extraction was not altered. Despite relative hypoglycemia, glucose
turnover rate, total glucose mass, and volume of distribution of
glucose were not altered. This indicates that the sum total of the
effects of malnutrition on the various hormonal influences
controlling glucose turnover had resulted in the establishment of a
new dynamic equilibrium associated with lower plasma glucose levels.
It is concluded that fasting glucose levels are sustained at a lower
level in chronic malnutrition by an adaptive process that includes
insulin resistance and insulinopenia, counterbalanced not only by
glucagon resistance, as shown earlier, but also by decreased glucagon
secretion.
Received 21 November 1994; accepted in final form 28 December
1994.
APS Manuscript Number E482-4.
Article publication pending Am. J. Physiol. (Endocrinol. Metab.).
ISSN 1080-4757 Copyright 1995 The American Physiological Society.
Published in APStracts on 25 February 1995.