Plasma Free Fatty Acids Before and After an Intravenous Insulin Injection in Acute Schizophrenic Men

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Abstract
The possibility of abnormalities in carbohydrate metabolism in schizophrenia has been stressed by many authors (Mann 1925, Freeman et al., 1943, Braceland et al., 1945, Morgan and Pilgrim 1952, Henneman et al., 1954, Moya et al., 1958, Lingjaerde and Skaug 1959). As there is a close relation between lipid metabolism (in terms of plasma free fatty acids, FFA) and glucose metabolism Mueller (1961, 1962) tested the FFA-response to insulin-induced hypoglycaemia in chronic schizophrenic patients. He found that schizophrenics showed less reduction in FFA-values than healthy controls, in some cases even an increase. Results were later presented which tend to confirm Mueller's data (van Sickle et al., 1966). Interest was focused on increased sympathetic activity in the patients, and infusion experiments with epinephrine (van Sickle et al., 1966) and norepinephrine (Cardon and Mueller 1964) were performed without producing conclusive results.