Insulin antagonism characterizes infection, but the mechanism is unknown. Previous studies have been performed during the acute catabolic stage of infection, and the resultant metabolic changes reflect this decreased food intake and weight loss. To delineate metabolic alterations due to infection itself, rats with pyelonephritis induced by tail-vein injection of 1 ml. of Streptococcus faecalis (109 bacteria per milliliter) were studied two weeks later during a period of near-normal weight gain and food intake.
Fasting growth hormone concentrations (nanograms per milliliter) in the pyelonephritic rats were nearly five times normal (45.8 vs. 9.9). Intra-arterial glucose and insulin tolerance tests were impaired. Early glucose-induced insulin release was depressed. Fat pads from infected rats manifested higher basal lipolysis per cell. Glycerol-mediated gluconeogenesis by liver slices was decreased. This pathway was unaffected by insulin in infected rats but readily inhibited in control rats.
The following metabolic parameters were similar in control and infected animals: (in vivo) fasting concentrations of plasma glucose, free fatty acids, triglycerides, total corticoids, creatinine, insulin, glucagon, molar ratios of insulin and glucagon, glucose and insulin responses to tolbutamide, and glucagon and free fatty acid suppression after glucose; (in vitro) glucose metabolism by muscle and fat, epinephrine- and theophylline-stimulated lipolysis and re-esterification by epididymal fat pads, fasting hepatic glycogen content, glucose production by liver slices with and without alanine. No plasma insulin antagonist was found in the infected rats.
Metabolic alterations in infected rats can be demonstrated independently of the associated catabolism. Increased growth hormone secretion cannot explain all of these changes.
