THE IMMEDIATE RESPONSE OF THE PLASMA CHOLESTEROL TO THE INJECTION OF INSULIN AND OF EPINEPHRINE IN HUMAN SUBJECTS 1

Abstract

The intraven. or subcut. injection of 15-60 units insulin in 10 diabetic subjects was accompanied by little or no change in the plasma cholesterol in most instances, even when the blood sugar was reduced to distinctly hypoglycemic levels. In 7 non-diabetic subjects, the same result was obtained following the intraven. administration of 6-20 units. The ingestion of orange juice or glucose during hypoglycemia usually resulted in a marked fall of the plasma cholesterol. The injection of 0.5 to 1.0 mgm. of epinephrine subcutaneously in non-diabetic subjects produced little or no change in the plasma cholesterol even when the blood sugar increased appreciably. Insulin and epinephrine, separately, often produced a transient diminution in the corpuscle volume per cent of the blood, but the fluctuations in the percentile corpuscle volume bore no uniform relation to the plasma cholesterol content.