Relationships between metabolic clearance rate of insulin and body mass index in a female population ranging from anorexia nervosa to severe obesity.

Changes in the metabolic clearance rate of insulin (MCRI) have been described in several pathological conditions. Conflicting data suggest that they may be related to either body mass index (BMI) or body composition. This study aimed to investigate the relationship between the MCRI and BMI in an exclusively female population showing a wide range of BMI. For that purpose, hyperinsulinemic normoglycemic glucose clamps were performed in nine anorectic subjects (BMI: 14.5 +/- 0.8 kg/m2), 11 healthy volunteers (BMI: 20.3 +/- 0.5 kg/m2) and 12 obese patients (BMI: 33.0 +/- 0.9 kg/m2). To exclude any influence of the menstrual cycle on the MCRI, five healthy women underwent three tests at different days of the menstrual cycle: menstruation period, late follicular pre-ovulatory phase and luteal phase, in random order. The MCRI, which was quite reproducible in a given subject, was not significantly modified by the menstrual cycle. In the premenopausal female population studied, the mean (+/- s.e.m.) MCRI normalized for body weight (kg) were 35.4 +/- 3.4, 24.7 +/- 1.8 and 14.0 +/- 1.0 ml/kg/min (P < 0.01) for anorectic subjects, healthy volunteers and obese patients, respectively. These differences were maintained when the MCRI was normalized according to corporeal surface (m2) (1018 +/- 75, 859 +/- 67, 638 +/- 40 ml/m2/min, P < 0.01) or lean body mass (kg) (37.1 +/- 3.4, 32.6 +/- 2.7 and 24.1 +/- 0.5 ml/kgLBM/min, P < 0.01), but disappeared when MCRI was expressed per kg of ideal body weight (24.6 +/- 2.2, 24.6 +/- 2.1 and 22.4 +/- 1.4 ml/kgIBW/min, n.s.).(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS