Glucose metabolism studied isotopically in diabetic dogs: effect of restoration of peripheral normoinsulinaemia by the artificial B cell.

Normoglycaemia, peripheral normoinsulinaemia, and normoglucagonaemia were restored acutely in chronically diabetic dogs, using an extracorporal artificial B cell with peripheral venous insulin administration. Glucose metabolism was analysed by a non-steady-state tracer technique with double-labelled glucose (6-3H- and U-14C-glucose), and the incorporation of the 14C label into plasma lactate was determined. In the basal state, glucose turnover rates were not different from those in non-diabetic controls; but recirculation of the glucose-C label through the Cori cycle, and lactate labelling from glucose utilization were decreased. The glycaemic response to an intravenous infusion of non-labelled glucose was distinctly enhanced. This was based on a reduction in the rates of glucose disappearance. Its rates of appearance (total endogenous glucose production) were, however, suppressed to a normal extent by the exogenous glucose. Accordingly carbon recycling was nearly totally suppressed during the glucose infusion as in the controls. It is concluded that metabolic recompensation in these fasting, resting diabetic dogs remained incomplete because the interval of normoinsulinaemia, which obviously applied only to the peripheral circulation, was not long enough.