EFFECT OF SEVERAL HORMONES ON TOLERANCE TO GLUCOSE IN NON DIABETIC STAGE OF KK MICE

The effect of several hormones on the oral glucose tolerance test was studied in genetically diabetic KK mice at the stage of “prediabetes” (less than two months of age), and compared with Swiss albino mice. No significant difference in the oral glucose tolerance test, or in the blood glucose fall after insulin, was found between the two strains at that stage. The KK mice maintained higher blood glucose values up to three hours after glucagon injection and after pretreatment with growth hormone and triamcinolone. The response to epinephrine in the KK strain was delayed, when compared with the Swiss albino control mice. The exact mechanism by which the hormones studied produced these changes in the tolerance to glucose and their site of action remains unknown, but the data seems to suggest the presence of a congenital condition in the KK mice, by which the response to exogenously administered hormones is in some way modified. Copyright © 1969 Wiley‐Liss, Inc., A Wiley Company