Insulin enhances renal glucose excretion: relation to insulin sensitivity and sodium-glucose cotransport.

Insulin regulates renal glucose production and utilization; both these fluxes are increased in type 2 diabetes (T2D). Whether insulin also controls urinary glucose excretion is not known. We applied the pancreatic clamp technique in 12 healthy subjects and 13 T2D subjects. Each participant received a somatostatin infusion and a variable glucose infusion to achieve (within 1 hour) and maintain glycemia at 22 mmol/L for 3 hours; next, a constant insulin infusion (240 pmol/min/kg) was added for another 3 hours. Urine was collected separately in each period for glucose and creatinine determination. During saline, glucose excretion was lower in T2D than controls in absolute terms (0.49 (0.32) vs 0.69 (0.18) mmol/min, median (IQR), p=0.01) and as a fraction of filtered glucose (16.2 (6.4) vs 19.9 (7.5)%, p<0.001). With insulin, whole-body glucose disposal rose more in controls than T2D (183 (48) vs 101 (48) µmol/kg Acute exogenous insulin infusion jointly stimulates renal glucose and sodium excretion, indicating that the effect may be mediated by SGLTs. This action is resistant in patients with diabetes, accounting for their increased retention of glucose and sodium, and is not abolished by partial SGLT2 inhibition by empagliflozin.

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Competing interests: EF has participated in scientific advisory boards for Boehringer Ingelheim, Eli Lilly, and Sanofi; has been involved in ad hoc consulting for Janssen, AstraZeneca, and Mitsubishi Tanabe; has participated in occasional speaking engagements for AstraZeneca, Novo Nordisk, Sanofi, Mitsubishi Tanabe, Eli Lilly, Boehringer Ingelheim, and Merck Sharp & Dohme; and has received research grant support from Boehringer Ingelheim and AstraZeneca.