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Insulin and glucagon responses to adrenaline infusion in abdominal obese men
P Mauriège1, W M Klein Kranenbarg, D Prud'homme
1Lipid Research Center, Laval University Medical Research Center, Ste-Foy, Québec, Canada.
Objective:
To investigate the hormonal, cardiovascular and metabolic responses of visceral vs subcutaneous obese men to infused adrenaline.
Design:
Intervention study of an hour adrenaline infusion (0.01 micrograms/kg fat-free mass/min).
Subjects:
Eighteen moderately obese men (age: 30-40 y, BMI: 28-34 kg/m2) divided according to their degree (low vs high) of visceral adipose tissue (AT) accumulation.
Measurements:
Various fatness and fat distribution variables (computed tomography and anthropometry), heart rate and blood pressure, plasma concentrations of gluco-regulatory hormones, glucose, glycerol and free fatty acids (FFA).
Results:
Similar increases were noted in heart rate, plasma adrenaline, FFA and glycerol levels in both low and high visceral AT groups after hormonal infusion. There was a tendency for plasma glucagon responses to be higher in men with high amounts of visceral fat (p = 0.07). Plasma glucose levels increased in both groups, but significantly more in men with low levels of visceral AT (p < 0.05), whereas plasma insulin concentrations increased significantly only in men with high amounts of visceral AT in response to adrenaline infusion (p < 0.01). In the overall sample of obese men, visceral AT accumulation (but not the fat mass) was positively correlated with plasma insulin (r = 0.70) and glucagon responses (r = 0.63) to the hormone infusion (p < 0.01). These metabolic responses were not related to the achieved catecholamine concentration.
Conclusion:
These results suggest that some of the impairments in plasma glucose-insulin homeostasis noted in visceral obesity may be related to an abnormal metabolic response to an adrenaline challenge.