Pregnancy in Insulin-Treated Alloxan Diabetic Rats

Abstract

1. The fertility and outcome of pregnancy have been studied in alloxan diabetic rats treated with insulin. The diabetes was only partly controlled, but the general condition of the diabetic mothers was good.2. Fertility rate was increased compared with that in animals in which the diabetes was not treated with insulin. Stillbirth rate and neonatal death rate (5% combined loss) and the percentage of weaned animals (89%) were normal, as contrasted with a 37% combined stillbirth and neonatal mortality rate and 50% death-rate before weaning in the offspring of untreated diabetic mothers.3. It is concluded that alloxan diabetes does not adversely affect the foetal mortality, neonatal death-rate or the feeding of young animals unless it impairs the general health of the mother. , 1950] have shown that in rats with established alloxan diabetes there is a high foetal mortality and a great loss of young animals in the lactation period. These findings could be ascribed either to the diabetes per se or, as seemed more likely, to the poor general health of the mother. An attempt was there¬ fore made to study the outcome of pregnancy in rats in which the diabetes was ameliorated so that their general condition was improved without abolition of the diabetes. Although various workers have controlled the diabetes with insulin, the conditions of their experiments differed from ours. Miller [1947] controlled the diabetes in his animals with insuhn and obtained a normal foetal loss rate, but since the condition was induced only during pregnancy, his results cannot be compared with those of our earher experiments in which the diabetes was established before mating. Although Davis, Fugo & Lawrence [1947] produced normal living htters in animals with established diabetes controlled by insulin, their results in the uncon¬ trolled diabetic rat were at complete variance with ours, in that interruption of pregnancy occurred early. Sinden & Longwell [1949], using animals with established alloxan diabetes, found that animals, whether controlled with insulin or not, were unable to feed their young adequately. The improvement which might be anticipated with insulin administration thus did not occur. Earlier experiments [Lindan & Morgans MATERIAL AND METHODSOne hundred adult virgin female albino Wistar rats (body weight 160-210 g.) were of the same stock and were kept under conditions identical with those of the previous experiment. They were made diabetic by alloxan injection using the same technique as previously [Lindan & Morgans, 1950]. To avoid interference with lactation from injection abscesses ah injections were made subcutaneously into the back of the animal. Twenty-two animals were given insuhn on the twenty-fifth day after alloxan injection. AU rats received 3 units of protamine zinc insuhn daily at the beginning of * Lund Besearch Fellow of the Diabetic Association.

Spontaneous abortion and diabetes mellitus

“…This effect of maternal diabetes can be prevented by giving insulin (Ferret, Linden and Morgans 1950;Deucher, 1978). Though our diabetic patients were receiving conventional therapy, with once or twice daily insulin, and were not as poorly controlled as in these rodent experiments, HbA, levels were clearly elevated in many patients.…”