Plasma Insulin Response to An Oral Glucose Load in Noncoronary Heart Disease

¹ Staff Cardiologist, Long Beach Veterans Administration Hospital; Assistant Clinical Professor of Medicine, University of California College of Medicine, Irvine
² Assistant Chief, Endocrine Section, Long Beach Veterans Administration Hospital; Assistant Clinical Professor of Medicine, University of California College of Medicine, Irvine

Fourteen patients with noncoronary heart disease (mean age 46 years) and 14 controls (mean age 46 years) had oral glucose tolerance tests with plasma glucose and plasma immunoreactive insulin levels determined. None of the 28 subjects was obese, malnourished, or had a history of angina or diabetes, a family history of diabetes, liver, renal, thyroid disease, hypokalemia, or was on diuretics. Eight of 14 patients (57 percent) with noncoronary heart disease had abnormal plasma insulin response compatible with maturity-onset diabetes, and one of these 14 patients (7 percent) had a diabetic glucose tolerance curve. Three of 14 control subjects (21 percent) had a plasma insulin response compatible with maturityonset diabetes, and none of these controls (0 percent) had abnormal glucose tolerance. These results indicate that the abnormal plasma insulin response to an oral glucose load found in many patients with noncoronary heart disease represents a nonspecific metabolic abnomelity.