The effects of hypoglycemia on the adrenal secretion of epinephrine and norepinephrine in the dog.

Abstract

A modification of the sensitive fluorometric procedure of Weil-Malherbe and Bone has been applied to a study of the changes in epinephrine and norepinephrine in adrenal venous and peripheral venous plasma of 24 lightlyanesthetized mongrel dogs. Insulin hypoglycemia produced a marked increase in the adrenal secretion of epinephrine and a much less marked increase of norepinephrine. The infusion of glucose produced a rapid decline in the elevated secretion rate of both epinephrine and norepinephrine while the administration of amphenone produced no significant change. An increase in both epinephrine and norepinephrine in response to hypoglycemia was observed in peripheral plasma. THE increased secretion of sympathomimetic amines occurring in response to insulin-induced hypoglycemia was first demonstrated in 1924 by Cannon, Maclver and Bliss (1) and in the same year by Houssay, Molinelli and Lewis (2). In a series of studies extending over several years Satake (3) found an increase in the content of these su...