Glucose metabolism in patients with Cushing's syndrome

Glucose intolerance, sometimes severe enough to cause frank diabetes mellitus, is a frequent feature of Cushing's syndrome. The primary cause of the hyperglycaemia, whether due to glucose over-production or under-utilization, remains unresolved. We therefore measured glucose turnover using an intravenous bolus of 3-3H glucose in 14 normoglycaemic patients with Cushing's syndrome and 14 control subjects. Seven of the patients with Cushing's syndrome were also restudied post-operatively. Plasma glucose concentrations were similar in all three groups whereas glucose metabolic clearance rate (MCR) (1.80 +/- 0.06 ml/min/kg) and glucose turnover rate (9.09 +/- 0.36 mumol/min/kg) were significantly reduced in patients with Cushing's syndrome compared to normal subjects (2.21 +/- 0.1; P less than 0.001; 10.90 +/- 0.50; P less than 0.01) and rose post-operatively to normal values (2.35 +/- 0.14 ml/min/kg; 11.07 +/- 0.48 mumol/min/kg). We conclude from these results that the hyperglycaemia sometimes found in Cushing's syndrome may be primarily due to decreased utilization rather than increased glucose production.