Serum Insulin in Ugandan Africans

Abstract

Twenty-six controls, twenty-three patients with chronic pancreatitis and eight with late onset diabetes were studied for serum insulin response to oral glucose loading. Levels of fasting scrum insulin in Ugandan Africans were not different from those seen elsewhere. Approximately 43% of the controls and pancreatitis patients had the genetic diabetes pattern of insulin response. It is noted that patients with pancreatic diabetes may have the diabetic gene as well, and may thus be indistinguishable from genetic diabetics in behaviour and type of complications. This finding may explain some of the previously puzzling features of pancreatic diabetes