Pancreatectomy Diabetes in the Rat as Influenced by Strain, Age and Sex

Abstract

Partial pancreatectomy was performed on young and adult rats of the Wistar and the Osborne-Mendel strains. All operations were done by the same operator to minimize effects of variation in technique. Observation of the resulting alterations in glucose metabolism revealed: a) strain difference. Osborne-Mendel animals were frequently made diabetic but Wistar animals never; b) sex difference. Males developed diabetes with four times the frequency of the females, a sex difference opposite to that found in alloxan diabetes production; c) age difference. Surgery in the immature animal was much more often successful in producing diabetes than it was in the adult.