[Exhaustibility of beta cells in the aged after repeated stimuli]

Seven aged subjects (mean age 78,5 years) and seven young controls (mean age 23,8 years), all nondiabetics and non-obese, were given intravenous injections of glucose, glucose and arginine, tolbutamide, tolbutamide and glucagon at 30 minutes intervals in order to determine the maximum insulin-secretory capacity of their pancreatic beta-islet cells after intensive stimulation. The response iun the elderly group was less prompt and quantitatively smaller at all stage of the test, but the beta-cells both in aged and in young subjects showed no evidence of exhaustion.