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The effect of insulin and glucagon on systolic properties of the normal and septic isolated rat heart

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Summary

Controversy exists in the literature concerning the effects of insulin and glucagon on cardiac muscle contractility, in particular during anoxia, ischemia or sepsis. The purpose of the present study was to determine the effects of insulin and glucagon on the systolic function of the normal and the dysfunctioning septic rat myocardium in the Langendorff preparation. In the normal isolated rat heart, neither insulin nor glucagon exhibited any lasting inotropic effect on systolic function or coronary flow. Sepsis (cecal ligation and puncture) resulted in a dramatic reduction of systolic function to 44% of control animals. All insulin-containing formulations tested improved systolic function in septic hearts by a mean of 85% compared to Krebs and glucose only. However, this improvement did not reach statistical significance compared to the use of Krebs and glucose only. Glucagon at 100 μg/l was doing as well as Krebs and glucose alone while at 1 mg/l glucagon was only able to maintain pre-perfusion contractility. Our results suggest that neither insulin nor glucagon seem to possess special inotropic properties for the isolated perfused normal or septic rat heart.

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Author notes

  1. L. J. Markovitz

    Present address: Department of Surgery, Mount Sinai School of Medicine, New York, New York

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Surgery and Cardiology, Hadassah University Medical Center and Hebrew University-Hadassah Medical School, Jerusalem, (Israel)

    L. J. Markovitz, Y. Hasin & H. R. Freund

Authors
  1. L. J. Markovitz
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  2. Y. Hasin
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  3. H. R. Freund
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Additional information

Supported in part by grants from the Chief Scientist of the Israel Ministry of Health and the Joint Research Fund of the Hebrew University and Hadassah.

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Markovitz, L.J., Hasin, Y. & Freund, H.R. The effect of insulin and glucagon on systolic properties of the normal and septic isolated rat heart. Basic Res Cardiol 80, 377–383 (1985). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF01908181

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF01908181

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