A Metabolic Regulating Device based on the Actions of Human Growth Hormone and of Insulin, Singly and Together, on the Human Forearm

Abstract

THERE have been several reports from the laboratories of F. G. Young (Ketterer, Randle and Young¹, Korner and Manchester², Korner³) suggesting that growth hormone directs the action of insulin on muscle ‘away from carbohydrate toward protein synthesis’. Although some of the intimate detail of the proposed hypothesis concerning growth hormone action may be erroneous, the basic notion, as advanced by Korner³, that, in the presence of growth hormone, some actions of insulin are preserved, whereas other effects are blunted, is very attractive. Placed in juxtaposition to observations from this laboratory on the effects of close intra-arterial injection of insulin and of human growth hormone, singly and together, on muscle and adipose tissue metabolism in situ in the forearm of man, it provides a clearer picture of the day-to-day role of human growth hormone and of insulin, and thus of their place in the economy of the normal adult.