The effect of insulin on the dextrose consumption perfused skeletal muscle

Abstract

The experiments of Hepburn and Latchford (1), which have been confirmed by Burn and Dale (2), show that insulin accelerates the rate of disappearance of dextrose from the fluid used to perfuse the isolated mammalian heart. Burn and Dale also demonstrated that insulin greatly increases the rate of disappearance of dextrose from the circulating blood of the decapitated and eviscerated cat. Cori, Cori and Goltz (3), working on rabbits/ and Lawrence (4) and Pemberton and Cunningham (5), from clinical studies, have reported that insulin increases the loss of sugar from the blood during its passage through a limb. Frank, Nothman and Wagner (6) have obtained similar results by analyses of blood samples drawn simultaneously from the femoral artery and vein, after the injection of insulin into the femoral artery. Macleod (7) states that, in experiments in his laboratory, no increased discrepancy between the dextrose content of the arterial and venous blood was observed after the administration of insulin in normal or diabetic animals. Attempts to prove that insulin causes an increased disappearance of sugar from the fluid perfused through the isolated limbs of laboratory animals have been made by Macleod and his collaborators (7) and Staub (8). Macleod states that his experiments were unsatisfactory because of œdema of the muscles or the development of marked resistance to the perfusion. Staub has reported experiments in which the rate of sugar disappearance, before and after the addition of insulin, from the defibrinated blood used to perfuse the hind limbs of the dog, are recorded. In some of Staub’s experiments insulin appeared definitely to accelerate the sugar disappearance. Because of the very rapid disappearance of sugar from the blood before the addition of insulin, however, it is difficult to demonstrate convincingly, by this type of experiment, that the rate of disappearance is really accelerated by insulin.