Dissociation between pancreatic islet blood flow and insulin release in the rat

The blood flow to the pancreatic islets was estimated with the aid of microspheres in fed or starved (72 h) rats. The total pancreatic blood flow (PBF) in fed animals was 0.55 +/- 0.04 ml X min-1 X g pancreas and in the starved animals 0.30 +/- 0.04 ml X min-1 X g pancreas (P less than 0.001), and the corresponding islet blood flow (IBF) 82.0 +/- 12.4 and 50.5 +/- 9.7 microliter min-1 X g pancreas respectively (P greater than 0.05). Intraperitoneal injection of 2 ml of a 30% glucose solution caused a marked increase in IBF in both fed (P less than 0.05) and starved (P less than 0.01) animals to approximately the same level. The circulating insulin concentration remained unaffected by glucose in the starved rats but increased (P less than 0.001) in the fed rats, indicating that insulin release does not necessarily rise in parallel with an elevated IBF. Intraperitoneal injection of 2 ml of a 30% solution of mannoheptulose, an inhibitor of islet glucose metabolism, decreased the serum insulin concentrations although the serum glucose concentrations rose significantly in both fed (P less than 0.001) and starved (P less than 0.001) animals. This treatment, however, caused both IBF and PBF to increase significantly in both groups. The data support the view that islet blood flow is not necessarily related to the metabolic status of the islet cells or to the insulin release.