The effect of glucagon on the heart muscle: Relation between metabolic processes and contractility

Effects of subcutaneous, low‐dose glucagon on insulin‐induced mild hypoglycaemia in patients with insulin pump treated type 1 diabetes

“…With regard to side effects, heart rate increased significantly less after glucagon bolus in mild hypoglycaemia compared with saline bolus, which may be explained by the difference in hypoglycaemia‐induced catecholamine response between glucagon and saline days . The frequency and severity of nausea and other side effects were identical in each intervention, although two patients vomited ∼60 min after injection of 200 and 300 µg glucagon, respectively.…”

The effect of insulin and glucagon on systolic properties of the normal and septic isolated rat heart

“…While Farah and Turtle (3,4) observed no cardiac effects of glucagon on the intact dog heart but noted an increase in cardiac output and decrease in right atrial pressure in the isolated heart-lung preparation, Glick et al (8) produced marked increases in maximal developed tension by adding glucagon both to the intact dog heart as well as to the cat papillary muscle. Kruty et al (11) found glucagon to have only a short-lasting positive inotropic effect coupled with enhancement of oxidative processes in the myocardium at mitochondrial level.…”

“…In severe sepsis, where we found ATP levels in cardiac muscle to be extremely low ]unpublished data], this might prove to be a limiting factor to the action of glucagon. Once again, all these reports deal with different animal species, different experimental models and, particularly, varying doses of glucagon (8,9,11,16), making it extremely difficult to draw firm conclusions.…”