Evaluation of four mathematical models of glucose and insulin dynamics with analysis of effects of age and obesity.

Despite there being a number of mathematical models of glucose and insulin dynamics, there have been no evaluations of their operation in large groups of subjects. We have carried out intravenous glucose tolerance tests on a group of 182 healthy males, with determination of plasma glucose, insulin, and C-peptide concentrations. Parameters of glucose and insulin dynamics were determined using the minimal model of glucose disappearance, a minimal model of peripheral insulin delivery, and two different models of pancreatic insulin secretion (models I and II). Successful identifications were obtained in 96, 95, 76, and 100% of cases, respectively. The models were evaluated in terms of their ability to recover effects of obesity and aging on carbohydrate metabolism. The glucose disappearance model successfully detected the insulin resistance of both obesity and aging, whereas the peripheral insulin delivery model indicated an increased responsiveness of insulin delivery to glucose in obesity but detected no significant change associated with age. No parameter of pancreatic secretion model I exhibited a significant association with either age or obesity. Insulin secretion model II indicated that the hyperinsulinemia accompanying obesity resulted from both increased pancreatic secretion and decreased hepatic insulin uptake.