Net urate handling by renal tubules in maturity onset diabetics

ABSTRACT

An oral glucose tolerance test [OGTT] was performed and the serum levels of urate and creatinine were determined in 36 maturity-onset diabetics [MOD] and 10 normal controls. The rate of urine flow, the concentration of urate and creatinine were determined on 24 hours collected urine. From these determinations, creatinine clearance [C.C.], urate clearance [U.C.], urate load, final urate excretion per minute and net tubular urate reabsorption were calculated. When the diabetic patients, as a whole, were compared with normal controls, there is significant decrease in the C.C. and nonsignificant increase in U.C.; but when the nonproteinuric diabetics were compared with the controls, a significant elevation in U.C. was noticed. Both proteinuric and nonproteinuric diabetic patients showed a significant decrease in both the filtered urate load to renal tubules and tubular urate reabsorption, but the urate excretion is not significantly changed in the proteinuric 01 nonproteinuric diabetic patients. It is suggested that the increased urate clearance, reported in diabetics in the present investigation, is due to the presence of increased amounts of glucose in the tubular filtrate