Glucose and Baroreceptor Function

Abstract

THE OCCURRENCE of "strokes" in association with meals is well recognized, but this relationship is not fully understood. One postulated mechanism is that patients lose vasomotor control after a large meal so that a change in posture after the feast leads to significant falls in blood pressure, jeopardizing blood flow in an already diseased part of the vasculature of the brain, with consequent infarction. This hypothesis has some support. It has been shown, for example, that elderly subjects have defective vasomotor control and compensate poorly for sudden changes in cardiac output.^1,2It is possible, therefore, that in such subjects further impairment of vasomotor function related to the meal may significantly decrease cerebral blood flow in a compromised part of the vasculature. Some patients with diabetes, with or without clinically recognizable peripheral neuropathy, have impaired baroreceptor reflexes.³In such patients and in others without diabetes but with impaired