Insulin - Cortisone Relationship in Experimental Teratogenesis

IT is well known that the administration of large amounts of cortisone to experimental animals is associated with the production of hyperglycæmia 1 . There is also evidence from clinical cases that in diabetes the therapeutic use of cortisone increases considerably the daily amount of insulin required to maintain the blood-sugar within normal limits 2 . The nature of this contra-insulin effect of cortisone is uncertain, but it has been suggested that it may be due to excessive destruction of insulin since there is no definite evidence that contra-insulin factors are responsible for a marked increase in the peripheral requirements for insulin 3 .