Clinical Physiology: The Concentration of Ketone Bodies, Free Fatty Acids, and Glycerol in the Blood of Obese Persons after Injection of Insulin and Glucose Studies before and during Absolute Fasting

Abstract

Wildenhoff, K. E., Ladefoged, K. & Schwartz Sörensen, N. The Concentration of Ketone Bodies, Free Fatty Acids, and Glycerol in the Blood of Obese Persons after Injection of Insulin and Glucose. Studies before and during Absolute Fasting. Scand. J. clin. Lab. Invest. 35, 129–135, 1975.

The blood patterns of acetoacetate (AA), 3-hydroxybutyrate (3-HB), free fatty acids, and glycerol were registered after intravenous injection of insulin or glucose in seven obese persons. In each individual investigated the study with insulin was carried out first and that with glucose 2 days later. Both sets of studies were repeated after 8 and 10 days of absolute fasting. In the studies both before and during fasting the concentration of AA and 3-HB in blood varied independently of lipolysis. It is concluded that determination of only one of the ketone bodies is an insufficient expression for changes in total ketone body concentration and that the peripheral metabolism of AA during the fasting studies was less than the production of AA after injection of insulin or glucose, whereas the opposite was the case in the prefasting studies.

Key Words:

• Acetoacetate
• 3-hydroxybutyrate
• obesity
• starvation