Relation of Adrenal Glands to Experimental Pancreatic Diabetes

Abstract

It was reported 1 , 2 that unilateral adrenalectomy or interference with epinephrine secretion (by adrenal denervation, etc.), ameliorates diabetes in depancreatized dogs. It was stated that in animals already diabetic the adrenal operations diminished the glycosuria; also, that in dogs previously subjected to these operations, pancreatectomy either failed to cause or caused only a mild degree of glycosuria. Insulin requirement (on a constant diet) for controlling the glycosuria was reported to be decidedly less as the result of the adrenal operations which also were said to render animals more sensitive to insulin. In general, these statements agree with conclusions previously reported by others.

We find it necessary to revise the interpretations made from the earlier experiments and published in preliminary reports. More extensive investigation, under better conditions, and quantitative studies of the rate of epinephrine output (by the method employed by Stewart and Rogoff), on an adequate series of control animals, indicate that we were misled in the previous evaluation of our experimental data. Indeed, we are now convinced that satisfactory experiments lead to the conclusion that partial adrenalectomy, or operations for suppressing epinephrine secretion (adrenal denervation, with or without mechanical destruction of medulla), do not prevent or diminish the experimental diabetes produced by total pancreatectomy in dogs.

Although quantitative determinations demonstrated marked reduction or suppression of epinephrine output, in some of the preliminary experiments on depancreatized animals subjected to the adrenal operations, the assumption that this is responsible for reduced insulin requirement proved to be incorrect when a sufficient number of satisfactory control experiments became available. It is not significant that animals surviving only a short time after operation required less insulin, sometimes little or none, since it is known that hyperglycemia and glycosuria may be low or may fail to develop if the post-operative condition of the animal is not good. Of those surviving much longer, the insulin requirement usually was decidedly less after a few weeks than shortly after pancreatectomy.