Abstract
The extent of direct uptake of glucose into hepatic glycogen following oral glucose loading in man is determined by mobilizing newly formed glycogen with a glucagon infusion in the immediately postabsorptive period. The amount of glucose flushed from liver glycogen is measured by using "out-of-steady-state" tracer turnover techniques. Following a 93 ± 1 g load of glucose, at most 7.7 ± 1 g of the ingested glucose is recovered from glycogen. If the unlabelled glucose pool is taken into account, at most 10 g of available glucose can be said to be taken up directly into hepatic glycogen during the absorption of the glucose load.