Insulin response to intravenous glucagon in children with familial constitutional short stature.

An intravenous glucagon test was performed in 8 children with familial constitutional short stature who were also lean. These children were randomly selected from a larger group of children with the same clinical manifestation and who had been shown to have a low insulin response to an oral glucose tolerance test and to an intravenous arginine test, without glucose intolerance. 7 out of 8 children showed a normal insulin response to intravenous glucagon, with a peak level of 53--180 millimicron/ml 2 minutes after the injection. It is assumed that these insulin responses represent an intact 'rapid' pool of insulin within the beta-cell, and can explain the absence of glucose intolerance in all the children so far studied.