Effects of Hypophysectomy and of Anterior Pituitary Extracts on Disposition of Fed Carbohydrate in Rats.

Abstract

Rapid disappearance of body carbohydrate and correspondingly high rates of carbohydrate oxidation were observed in fasted hypophysectomized rats, and anterior pituitary extracts were found to restore to these animals the ability to maintain their carbohydrate levels.1,2,3 In order to determine whether hypophysectomized rats differed from the normal in their carbohydrate metabolism in the fed state as well as when fasted, and to determine whether anterior lobe extracts acted also under these conditions, the following experiments were performed:Normal and hypophysectomized rats were fasted, then fed known amounts of glucose. The oxygen consumption, respiratory quotients and N excretion were determined during the next 4 hours. Then the animals were killed and the levels of blood glucose and of liver and muscle glycogen were determined, as were also the amounts of glucose remaining in the alimentary tracts. Identical experiments were performed at the same time on both normal and hypophysectomized rats which h...