[Various characteristics of energy metabolism in diabetes mellitus]

In the blood of patients (104) with diabetes mellitus of various severity some energy metabolic indices (lactate, pyruvate, nonesterified fatty acids, and in some patients also glycogen and glycogenolytic activity of the blood), tissue oxygen tension and immunoreactive insulin were studied simultaneously. The glycogen content, a and b phosphorylase activity were determined in the liver and the skeletal muscles, and lactate, glycogen, and pyruvate in the blood of animals with experimentally induced diabetes mellitus (alloxan and immune diabetes). Changes in the energy metabolism were revealed in all forms of diabetes mellitus: in hyperinsulinism accompanying early forms of diabetes mellitus there was activation of anaerobic processes and tissue hyperoxygenation, and at the late stages of the disease a tendency to tissue hypoxia. Experimental diabetes was accompanied by glycogen reduction in the skeletal muscles together with the growth of b phosphorylase activity. This could be due to the reduction of glucose-6-phosphate in the muscles and to a disturbed activity of the other systems regulating glycogen metabolism.