Role of amylin in insulin secretion and action in humans: antagonist studies across the spectrum of insulin sensitivity.

Background: Amylin is a peptide co-secreted with insulin by pancreatic beta-cells. A role for amylin in the pathogenesis of type 2 diabetes mellitus (DM2) has been suggested by in vitro and in vivo studies indicating an effect of amylin to cause insulin resistance and/or inhibit insulin secretion.

Methods: We have determined the effect of endogenous amylin on insulin secretion and insulin action in humans by performing 4-h hyperglycemic clamps during infusion of placebo or a specific amylin receptor antagonist (ARA) in paired, double-blinded, crossover studies.

Dual energy X-ray absorptiometry assessment of fat mass distribution and its association with the insulin resistance syndrome.

Objective: To determine which dual energy X-ray absorptiometry (DXA)-derived indices of fat mass distribution are the most informative to predict the various parameters of the metabolic syndrome.

Research Design And Methods: A total of 87 healthy men, 63 lean (% fat < or =26) and 24 obese (% fat >26), underwent DXA scanning to evaluate body composition with respect to the whole body and the trunk, leg, and abdominal regions from L1 to L4 and from L3 to L4. These regions were correlated with insulin sensitivity determined by the euglycemic-hyperinsulinemic clamp, insulin area under the curve after oral glucose tolerance test (AUC I); triglyceride; total, HDL, and LDL cholesterol; free fatty acids; and blood pressure.

Effect of perfusion rate on the time course of insulin-mediated skeletal muscle glucose uptake.

To better define the time course of skeletal muscle glucose uptake and its modulation by changes in perfusion, we performed systemic euglycemic-hyperinsulinemic clamps (40 mU.m-2.min-1) for a 90-min period in a group of lean, insulin-sensitive subjects (n = 9) on two occasions (approximately 4 wk apart) with insulin-mediated vasodilation intact or inhibited.

Obesity/insulin resistance is associated with endothelial dysfunction. Implications for the syndrome of insulin resistance.

To test the hypothesis that obesity/insulin resistance impairs both endothelium-dependent vasodilation and insulin-mediated augmentation of endothelium-dependent vasodilation, we studied leg blood flow (LBF) responses to graded intrafemoral artery infusions of methacholine chloride (MCh) or sodium nitroprusside (SNP) during saline infusion and euglycemic hyperinsulinemia in lean insulin-sensitive controls (C), in obese insulin-resistant subjects (OB), and in subjects with non-insulin-dependent diabetes mellitus (NIDDM). MCh induced increments in LBF were approximately 40% and 55% lower in OB and NIDDM, respectively, as compared with C (P < 0.05).

Insulin-mediated skeletal muscle vasodilation contributes to both insulin sensitivity and responsiveness in lean humans.

Whether insulin-mediated vasodilation is important in determining insulin's overall action to stimulate glucose uptake is unknown. To this end, we measured leg glucose uptake during euglycemic hyperinsulinemic clamps performed at two insulin doses (40 mU/m2 per min, n = 6 and 120 mU/m2 per min, n = 15) alone and during a superimposed intrafemoral artery infusion of GN-monomethyl-L-arginine (L-NMMA) designed to blunt insulin-mediated vasodilation. During the higher dose study, hyperinsulinemia resulted in about a twofold rise in basal leg blood flow from 0.