The effect of diazepam on pentagastrin-stimulated and nocturnal (sleeping) gastric secretion in man.

Intravenous diazepam will not significantly suppress gastric secretion within the first hour after "maximal" stimulation with pentagastrin. In the second and third hours, however, gastric secretion is significantly diminished. Further suppression after pentagastrin and diazepam is possible in each of the three post-stimulation hours by the simultaneous administration of atropine. Diazepam does not suppress the seven-hour basal nocturnal gastric secretion during sleep. This suggests that diazepam acts during wakefulness by inhibition of secretory stimuli arising centrally, thus providing a rationale for use of this drug in patients with peptic ulcer in whom stress may be a factor in the pathogenesis.