Hepatic glycogen formation by direct uptake of glucose following oral glucose loading in man

The extent of direct uptake of glucose into hepatic glycogen following oral glucose loading in man is determined by mobilizing newly formed glycogen with a glucagon infusion in the immediately postabsorptive period. The amount of glucose flushed from liver glycogen is measured by using "out-of-steady-state" tracer turnover techniques. Following a 93 +/- 1 g load of glucose, at most 7.7 +/- 1 g of ingested glucose is recovered from glycogen. If the unlabelled glucose pool is taken into account, at most 10 g of available glucose can be said to be taken up directly into hepatic glycogen during the absorption of the glucose load.