Quantities of
growth hormone (GH) excreted into the urine over 24 h were measured by the highly sensitive sandwich
enzyme immunoassay in 63
non-insulin-dependent diabetes mellitus (
NIDDM) subjects,
6 insulin-dependent diabetes mellitus (
IDDM) subjects, and 17 age-matched nondiabetic control subjects. GH-provocative tests with
intravenous infusion of
arginine revealed that urinary GH levels are closely correlated with the integrated concentrations of serum GH (r = .931, n = 14, P less than .001). Furthermore, 24-h urinary GH in control and diabetic subjects was inversely related to body mass index (r = .359, n = 80, P less than .001). The mean 24-h urinary GH in
NIDDM subjects was 11.1 +/- 1.9 ng/g
creatinine (Cr), which was not significantly different from that in nondiabetic control subjects (9.2 +/- 2.7 ng/g Cr). By contrast, the individual values for
IDDM subjects varied widely, and their mean values (42.5 +/- 20.8 ng/g Cr) were much greater than those in the control and
NIDDM subjects (P less than .01). The degree of
glycemic control does not seem to affect 24-h urinary GH in
NIDDM. The mean 24-h urinary GH in 7 subjects with proliferative
diabetic retinopathy was comparable to that in subjects without retinopathy or with background retinopathy. Thus, the measurement of 24-h urinary GH appears to provide reliable assessments of endogenous GH secretion under physiological conditions and will be a useful tool for obtaining further insight into the role of GH in diabetes.