Peer-reviewed veterinary case report
Growth hormone and IGF-1 levels in cats with diabetes mellitus
By Reusch, C E et al.·Published in The Veterinary record·2006·Clinic of Small Animal Internal Medicine·View original on PubMed →
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Original publication title: Measurements of growth hormone and insulin-like growth factor 1 in cats with diabetes mellitus.
- Species:
- cat
Plain-English summary
A group of 25 cats with untreated diabetes was tested for levels of growth hormone and insulin-like growth factor 1 (IGF-1) to understand their condition better. The untreated diabetic cats had lower IGF-1 levels compared to healthy cats, but these levels increased significantly after starting insulin treatment. After four to eight weeks of insulin therapy, their IGF-1 levels were similar to those of healthy cats. This suggests that insulin treatment can help improve hormone levels in diabetic cats, which may lead to better management of their diabetes.
People also search for: cat diabetes treatment · insulin for diabetic cats · low IGF-1 in cats
Abstract
Serum concentrations of insulin-like growth factor 1 (IGF-1) and growth hormone were measured in 25 cats with untreated diabetes mellitus (11 of which were used for follow-up measurements, one to three, four to eight, nine to 12 and 13 to 16 weeks after their treatment with insulin began), 14 diabetic cats that had previously been treated with insulin, and seven diabetic cats that also had hypersomatotropism, two of which had not previously been treated with insulin; 18 healthy cats were used as controls. In the untreated diabetic cats the concentration of IGF-1 ranged from 13.0 to 433.0 ng/ml (median 170.5 ng/ml), which was significantly lower than the concentrations in the control cats (196.0 to 791.0 ng/ml, median 452.0 ng/ml). Their IGF-1 concentrations increased significantly when they were treated with insulin and after four to eight weeks were not different from those in the control cats. In the diabetic cats that had previously been treated with insulin the IGF-1 concentrations were 33.0 to 476.0 ng/ml (median 316.0 ng/ml), which was significantly lower than the concentrations in the control cats, but significantly higher than in the untreated diabetic cats. The IGF-1 concentrations in the two previously untreated diabetic cats with hypersomatotropism were low and low-normal but increased markedly after treatment with insulin. In the five previously treated cats with hypersomatotropism the concentration of IGF-1 was above the normal range. The concentrations of growth hormone in the treated and untreated diabetic cats without hypersomatotropisms were not significantly different and there was an overlap in its concentrations in the diabetic cats with and without hypersomatotropism.
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Search related cases →Original publication on PubMed: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/16474053/