Mechanisms and emerging treatments of the metabolic complications of chronic pancreatitis.
OBJECTIVE
Exocrine and endocrine abnormalities in chronic pancreatitis contribute to the morbidity and mortality risks of the disease. Complications of exocrine insufficiency include malabsorption, vitamin deficiency syndromes, and weight loss. Oral enzyme replacement therapy is usually effective if attention is paid to factors that affect the bioavailability of enzyme preparations. Complications of endocrine insufficiency can be more difficult to treat due in part to an incomplete knowledge of their etiology.


METHODS
This review focuses on the endocrine aspects of chronic pancreatitis and highlights the observations of our laboratory on the pathogenesis of the metabolic complications of the disease.


RESULTS
In addition to decreased insulin secretory capacity, pancreatogenic (or apancreatic) diabetes is characterized by decreased or absent glucagon and pancreatic polypeptide (PP) secretion, a loss of hepatic insulin receptor (IR) expression/availability, and an impairment in hepatic IR function (phosphorylation and endocytosis). Diminished hepatic IR expression in chronic pancreatitis appears to be because of PP deficiency; laboratory animals and patients with PP deficiency demonstrate decreased hepatic IR availability that is reversed by prolonged (8-hour) PP administration. The impairment in hepatic IR function appears independent of PP deficiency but is reversed by prolonged (28-day) treatment with the insulinotropic/insulinomimetic hormone glucagon-like peptide 1. The endocytosis of hepatic IR is linked to the endocytosis of the glucose transporter 2 from the hepatocyte plasma membrane, and studies suggest that the 2 plasma membrane-bound proteins are complexed noncovalently to function and translocate as a unit after insulin binding to the hepatic IR. The process appears vigorous and sensitive enough to account for a significant reduction in hepatic glucose output and may represent a major mechanism for insulin regulation of hepatic glucose production.


CONCLUSIONS
The regulatory mechanisms of PP-mediated hepatic IR expression and combined IR and GLUT2 endocytosis after insulin binding are defective in chronic pancreatitis and contribute to the apancreatic diabetes, which characterizes this disease.
Andersen
Dana K
DK
Department of Surgery, Johns Hopkins University Medical School, and Johns Hopkins Bayview Medical Center, Baltimore, MD 21224, USA. dander54@jhmi.edu
D000818:Animals; D003920:Diabetes Mellitus / Q000209:etiology / Q000378:metabolism; D006801:Humans; D007515:Islets of Langerhans / Q000378:metabolism* / Q000473:pathology; D050500:Pancreatitis, Chronic / Q000150:complications / Q000378:metabolism* / Q000628:therapy*