Effects of physiologic and supraphysiologic hyperglycemia on early and late-phase insulin secretion in chronically dialyzed uremic patients

To test secretory capacity of the beta-cell to a glucose stimulus in uremic patients on chronic dialysis, three hyperglycemic clamps (plasma glucose increments: 1, 4.5 and 11 mmol/l) were performed in 8 uremic and 8 healthy subjects. Early-phase insulin and C-peptide responses (delta I and delta C) during the initial 6 min were consistently exaggerated at all three steps in uremic patients compared with controls (delta I. 16 +/- 4 vs 4 +/- 2, 41 +/- 11 vs 15 +/- 4 and 60 +/- 12 vs 24 +/- 5 mU/l; delta C. 0.39 +/- 0.13 vs 0.07 +/- 0.02, 0.40 +/- 0.13 vs 0.16 +/- 0.02 and 0.73 +/- 0.15 vs 0.29 +/- 0.04 nmol/l, p less than 0.05 in all cases). Similarly, late-phase insulin secretion defined as the insulin increment between 90 and 120 min after initiation of the glucose challenge was enhanced in uremic patients at the two highest glycemic steps (44 +/- 10 vs 16 +/- 2 and 123 +/- 29 vs 44 +/- 5 mU/l, both p less than 0.01). The raised late-phase insulin response allowed comparable glucose disposal in the two groups (uremic patients: 9.2 +/- 1.0 and 15.5 +/- 1.6 mg.kg-1.min-1. Controls: 9.0 +/- 1.3 and 19.9 +/- 2.4 mg.kg-1.min-1). The slopes of potentiation, i.e. the slopes of the regression lines expressing the relationship between changes in insulin increments and changes in glucose, were markedly steeper in uremic patients (0.45 +/- 0.09 and 0.66 +/- 0.20, early and late-phase respectively) than in controls (0.20 +/- 0.06 and 0.25 +/- 0.03).(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)