Endogenous insulin and insulin sensitivity - An important determinant of skeletal muscle blood flow in chronic heart failure?

Aim Patients with heart failure have a reduced sensitivity to insulin's actions on glucose metabolism and a compensatory increase in endogenous plasma insulin levels. As insulin has a selective vasodilatory action in skeletal muscle, we have studied the association between insulin sensitivity and central and regional haemodynamics in patients with heart failure. Methods Ten patients with stable symptomatic heart failure were studied. We used non-invasive techniques to measure cardiac output, forearm blood flow, superior mesenteric artery blood flow and right renal artery blood flow. Blood samples were assayed for noradrenaline, renin and atrial natriuretic peptide levels. insulin sensitivity was assessed using the low dose short insulin tolerance test. Results There was a significant inverse correlation between forearm blood flow and insulin sensitivity (r=-0.67, P=0.03), patients with lesser degrees of insulin sensitivity having the greater forearm blood flows. There was no correlation with the other haemodynamic or neurohumoral parameters. Patients with greater insulin resistance tended to have higher circulating endogenous insulin levels, although this relationship did not reach statistical significance (r=-0.53, P=0.12). Conclusions Insulin sensitivity appears to be an important determinant of skeletal muscle blood flow in heart failure. We speculate that this is secondary to the increased circulating endogenous insulin levels, and suggest that the therapeutic potential of exogenous insulin merits further investigation.