Altered intestinal transit is independent of gastroparesis in the early diabetic rats.

The object of this trial was to study whether deranged intestinal transit in diabetic rats should be responsible for their gastroparesis. Male Sprague-Dawley rats received i.v. injection of streptozotocin 5 days before the motility experiment. Diabetic induction led to a marked body weight loss. The rats were sacrificed 15 min after the feeding of radiochromium and charcoal contained test marker. Then the radioactivity represented gastric emptying and charcoal represented intestinal transit were counted. Diabetic induction delayed gastric emptying as compared with controls (mean +/- SE: 41.0 +/- 2.5% vs. 57.1 +/- 3.5%, p < 0.001) while the intestinal transit was also inhibited (34.2 +/- 1.4% vs. 41.5 +/- 2.7%, p < 0.05). Diabetic gastric emptying values did not exhibit any correlation with intestinal transits but a correlation with plasma glucose levels was obtained (r = 0.522, p < 0.05). Gastric emptying values almost manifested a correlation with body weight ratios during the diabetic housing (r = 0.511, p = 0.0515). We conclude that hyperglycemia is one of the mechanisms to delay liquid gastric emptying but the latter is not chiefly resulted from the deranged intestinal transit. Dysmotility is probable one of factors enabled to impair the body weight gain.