Measurement of "true" glucose production rates in infancy and childhood with 6,6-dideuteroglucose.
"New" glucose production has been measured in 54 infants and children for the first time by continuous three-to-four-hour influsion of the safe, nonradioactive tracer 6,6-dideuteroglucose. The use of combined gas chromatography--mass spectrometry with monitoring of selected ions allowed deuterium enrichment in blood glucose to be measured on microliter samples with an error of less than 2 per cent. In the young child, glucose production increased in a slightly curvilinear manner from 1 kg. to 25 kg. body weight, when it reached 140 mg. per minute, almost the adult value of 173 mg. per minute (2.28 +/- 0.23 mg./kg.-min., mean +/- S.E.). Normalized for weight, glucose production in premature infants was 5.46 +/- 0.31 mg./kg.-min., in term neonates averaged 6.07 +/- 0.27 mg./kg.-min., in children below the age of six years was 7.1 +/- 0.27 mg./kg.-min., and in late childhood averaged 5.4 +/- 0.28 mg./kg.-min. Relative to estimated brain weight, however, glucose production was essentially linear from the 1-kg. premature infant to the 80-kg. adult. These data, the first measurements of "new" glucose production in childhood, suggest that brain size may be a principal determinant of those factors that regulate hepatic glucose output throughout life.
D001786:Blood Glucose / Q000096:biosynthesis; D001835:Body Weight; D001921:Brain / Q000033:anatomy & histology; D002490:Central Nervous System / Q000378:metabolism; D002648:Child; D002675:Child, Preschool; D002849:Chromatography, Gas; D003903:Deuterium; D005947:Glucose / Q000096:biosynthesis*; D006801:Humans; D007223:Infant; D007231:Infant, Newborn; D007234:Infant, Premature; D008099:Liver / Q000378:metabolism; D013058:Mass Spectrometry
C015803:6,6-dideuteroglucose; D001786:Blood Glucose; D003903:Deuterium; D005947:Glucose