STUDIES ON THE PHYSIOLOGY OF HUNGER. I. THE EFFECT OF INTRAVENOUS ADMINISTRATION OF GLUCOSE ON GASTRIC HUNGER CONTRACTIONS IN MAN1 By ALBERttT J. STUNKARD AND HAROLD G. WOLFF WITH THE TECHNICAL ASSISTANCE OF ALBA PLESCIA

The introduction of measures for the recording of gastric hunger contractions half a century ago laid the foundations for the modern study of ap-petite and hunger (1, 2). The finding that intra-venous administration of glucose could abolish these contractions in fasting dogs led Bulatao and Carlson to postulate that "(lack of) availability of carbohydrates for utilization... is an impor-tant factor in the genesis of the gastric hunger contractions " (3). Further evidence for this hy-pothesis was not forthcoming, and later reports of the effects of glucose administration on gastric motility have been inconsistent, and even in con-flict (4-6). Recently this problem has been reopened by Mayer's proposal of a "glucostatic " theory of the regulation of food intake which ascribes hunger to a depletion of the carbohydrate stores of the body, and satiety to the replenishment of these stores (7, 8). According to this theory the status of the carbohydrate stores is signalled to the hypothala-mic food regulatory centers by the rate at which glucose is utilized. Since experiments of the type performed by Bulatao and Carlson should provide a test of the glucostatic theory, it seemed important to repeat these studies in man to determine with greater assurance the effects of glucose on gastric hunger contractions. The peripheral removal of glucose provides an index of the metabolic events accom-panying such injection. Accordingly, peripheral capillary-venous glucose differences were deter-mined at intervals throughout the experiment, and these values were correlated with the effects of glucose injection on gastric hunger contractions