Abstract
Summary
The effects of ACTH on the fasting blood sugar level and glucose tolerance test; on the potassium and inorganic phosphorus content of the serum; on the nitrogen, phosphorus, chloride, sodium and potassium balances; on the urinary excretion of uric acid, creatinine and adrenal corticosteroids and on the blood eosinophil counts were determined in 5 young children with non-Addisonian (familial) hypoglycemia. The type of response to ACTH was similar in all respects to that of the normal adult. However, under the conditions of this experiment, instead of producing a transient state of diabetes mel-litus, as it does in the normal subject, the ACTH appeared merely to reverse the hypoglycemic tendency, with return of the fasting blood sugar level and the glucose tolerance curve to normal. While the eosinophil count returned to normal promptly upon withdrawal of ACTH, the blood sugar remained above the threshold for hypoglycemic reactions for at least 10 days without ACTH in the most severe case in the series (Fig. 1). Administration of 18 mg of ACTH in one dose every 48 hours thereafter served to maintain this one-year-old patient in an essentially non-hypoglycemic state for more than three additional weeks. Results of the study suggest that ACTH may prove to be as effective in the control of this non-Addisonian hypoglycemic disorder as insulin is in the control of diabetes mellitus.
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