Protective effect of glucose-insulin-potassium (GIK) on intestinal tissues after severe burn in experimental rats

Intestinal barrier damage after scald and burns, other trauma or major operations result in severe intestinal infections that cause serious consequences. Therefore, it is important to develop methods to protect intestinal barrier after severe burns. This study used rats that had full-thickness burn of approximately 30% of the total body surface area to investigate the effect and mechanism of glucose-insulin-potassium (GIK) and provide experimental evidence for application of GIK in protecting the intestine after burns or other trauma and major surgeries. The results show that the degree of intestinal damage and plasma diamine oxidase (DAO) levels in GIK (the concentrations of glucose, insulin, sodium chloride and potassium chloride were 100 g l(-1), 70 U l(-1), 9 g l(-1) and 5 g l(-1), respectively) and insulin (30 IU l(-1)) treatment groups were significantly lower than that in control group; the status of anti-inflammatory and pro-inflammatory cytokines and the ratio between them in GIK and insulin groups also significantly improved compared to those in control group; intestinal tumour necrosis factor-alpha (TNFα), nuclear factor-kappaB (NF-κB) and interleukin-10 (IL-10) messenger RNA (mRNA) expression and IL10/TNFα in GIK and insulin groups 2 days after the injury were also improved significantly compared to those in control group. All the indices including body weight detected in GIK group were improved to those in insulin group. Taken together, these results show that GIK and insulin show protective effect on intestine after severe burn, which may relate to controlling hyperglycaemia and regulating intestinal expression of NFκB and pro-inflammatory and anti-inflammatory cytokine genes by GIK and insulin; the protective effect of GIK on intestinal tissue after severe burn is superior to that of using insulin alone, which may attribute to improving the nutritional status by glucose supplement and the relatively higher dose of insulin in the GIK group.