A model of glucose kinetics and their control by insulin,compartmental and noncompartmental approaches

Compartmental and noncompartmental models are used to quantify, from multiple steady-state tracer experiments, glucose kinetics and the effect of insulin upon them. Some aspects of experiment design are discussed. A physiological three-compartment model of glucose kinetics is proposed which provides a new quantitative picture of insulin control of glucose metabolism. Noncompartmental modeling is shown to have structural errors which prevent physiological insight. Compartmental models make a better use of the informational content of kinetic data, even if more demanding both in terms of modeling and computational effort and in terms of physiological thinking.