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Updated: May 20, 2026

Hyperglycemic Clamp and Hypoglycemic Clamp in Conscious Mice
Published on: January 26, 2024
Glucose acts as a regulator of serum iron by increasing serum hepcidin concentrations
Elmar Aigner1, Thomas K Felder, Hannes Oberkofler
1Department of Laboratory Medicine, Paracelsus Medical University Salzburg, Austria. e.aigner@salk.at
Abstract:
Mutual clinical and molecular interactions between iron and glucose metabolism have been reported. We aimed to investigate a potential effect of glucose on iron homeostasis. We found that serum iron concentrations gradually decreased over 180 min after the administration of 75 g of glucose from 109.8 ± 45.4 mg/L to 94.4 ± 40.4 mg/L (P<.001; N=40) but remained unchanged in control subjects receiving tap water (N=21). Serum hepcidin, the key iron regulatory hormone which is mainly derived from hepatocytes but also expressed in pancreatic β-cells, increased within 120 min after glucose ingestion from 19.7 ± 9.9 nmol/L to 31.4 ± 21.0 nmol/L (P<.001). In cell culture, glucose induced the secretion of hepcidin and insulin into the supernatant of INS-1E cultures, but did not change the amount of hepcidin detectable in the hepatocyte cell culture HepG2. We additionally confirmed the expression of hepcidin in a human islet cell preparation. These results suggest that glucose acts as a regulator of serum iron concentrations, most likely by triggering the release of hepcidin from β-cells.
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