Some aspects of glucose metabolism in normal and alloxan-diabetic rats

Abstract

The in vivo incorporation of 14C from orally-administered, uniformly-labelled glucose into expired CO2, glycogen, and fatty acids has been studied with normal rats, alloxan-diabetic rats and diabetic rats treated with insulin. There was markedly less label in all three products in the diabetic rat. Treatment of the diabetic rat with an amount of insulin just sufficient to normalize the blood-sugar level restored to normal the utilization of glucose for production of CO2 and synthesis of glycogen, but elevated the synthesis of fatty acids from glucose to considerably above normal.

In all three groups of rats a large part of the ingested 14C was not recovered, after the compounds studied had been taken into account.