Total body glucose metabolism in the conscious, unrestrained piglet and its relation to body- and organ weight

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Abstract
1. Neonatal hypoglycaemia is a relatively common clinical problem in children but ethical constraints limit the investigations that may be made in the newborn.2. As a preliminary step to assess the suitability of the piglet as a model for glucose metabolism in man, whole-body glucose turnover and glucose pool size were measured using [2-3H]glucose in forty piglets from ten litters.3. Glucose pool size was linearly related to brain weight. However, multiple regression showed that the most useful predictors of pool size were body-weight and resting plasma glucose concentration.4. Glucose turnover was related to both brain weight and body-weight alone, but multiple regression showed that better predictors of turnover were liver weight, spleen weight and pancreas weight.5. Similarities between our own results in piglets and those obtained in human neonates by Bieret al.(1977) extend not only to glucose turnover, but also to its relationship with body-and brain weight. These findings suggest that the piglet may be a useful model for the study of glucose metabolism in babies.