Relationship between plasma free fatty acid levels and human placental lactogen secretion in late pregnancy.

Abstract

In order to determine whether changes in free fatty acid (FFA) levels affect hPL secretion in late human pregnancy in the same way as they affect human growth hormone (hGH) secretion, two types of experiments were performed: 1) I g of nicotinic acid (NA) was infused for 60 min inII patients and 1.5 g of NA was infused for 90 min in 8 additional patients; 2) triglycerides and heparin were administered iv for 120 min in 5 control cases and, in 11 other patients 0.3 U insulin/kg BW was injected at the 45th min of the triglycerideheparin infusion. Maternal blood glucose (BG), plasma triglycerides (TG), FFA, immunoreactive insulin (IRI) and hPL levels were sequentially determined in the course of these experiments. In both series of patients, the NA infusion resulted in substantial depression of FFA levels to around 50% of mean basal levels. The hPL levels displayed only negligible fluctuations, although FFA depression persisted for more than 2 hours. During the lipid-heparin infusion, an increase in plasma TG...