Kinetics of Elimination of Glucose from the Blood during and after a Continuous Intravenous Injection

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Abstract
Approx. isotonic glucose solns. were injected at constant rates (from 155 to 630 mg. of glucose / min. in different expts.) during a period of 60 min. into human subjects. The blood glucose was detd. in samples of capillary blood during and, in part of the expts., also after the injn. The results were in agreement with the hypothesis that elimination of the exogenous glucose from the blood follows a first-order reaction. The form of the blood glucose-time curve is detd. by rate of injn, but also by characteristics of the subject: k, the specific reaction-rate constant, and v, the apparent initial volume of distr. The mean value of k obtained from tests with 24 subjects whose carbohydrate metabolism was presumably normal was 0.052 min-1. This corresponds to to a period of half-life of 13.4 min. The mean value of v was 10.6 liters or 17% of the body wt. or 20.0% of the estimated "lean body mass". In 3 diabetic subjects k values were within normal range but v values were strikingly low. In the interest of a theoretically sound and physiologically meaningful interpretation of glucose tolerance tests, the authors advocate the use of the constants constants k and v as the criteria of such tests.