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New Zealand Journal of Agricultural Research abstracts

Tissue responsiveness and sensitivity to insulin in sheep fed plantain and orchardgrass and exposed to cold

H. Sano1
Y. Tamura2
A. Shiga1

1Faculty of Agriculture
Iwate University
Morioka 020-8550, Japan
email: sano@iwate-u.ac.jp

2Tohoku National Agricultural Experiment
Station
Morioka 020-0123, Japan

Abstract  To assess the effect on insulin action of feeding a forage herb to sheep exposed to a cold environment, eight sheep were fed either plantain (PL), a forage herb, or orchardgrass (OR), a forage. A hyperinsulinaemic euglycaemic clamp procedure was applied to determine tissue responsiveness and sensitivity to insulin in both the thermoneutral (20°C) and cold (0-4°C) environments. For the glucose clamp procedure, insulin was infused over four sequential 2-h periods at rates of 0.64, 1.6, 4.0, and 10 mU kg-0.75 body weight min-1 and glucose was infused at variable rates to maintain euglycaemia. The maximal glucose infusion rate (tissue responsiveness to insulin) was greater (P = 0.04) for the PL diet than for the OR diet, and was enhanced (P = 0.001) during cold exposure. The plasma insulin concentration at half maximal glucose infusion rate (tissue sensitivity to insulin) was influenced by neither diet nor environment. No significant diet by environment interaction was observed for these variables. It is possible that in sheep the forage herb PL enhances insulin action through enhanced tissue responsiveness. Insulin action in response to cold exposure was comparable between the PL and OR diets.

Keywords  herb; cold exposure; glucose clamp procedure; insulin; plantain; sheep

A02056; Received 23 August 2002; accepted 13 May 2003; online publication date 9 September 2003
New Zealand Journal of Agricultural Research, 2003, Vol. 46: 169-173
0028-8233/03/4603-0169 $7.00/0 © The Royal Society of New Zealand 2003

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