Effect of smoking on the fasting blood sugar and pressor amines.

E VIDENCE has been presented by various investigators that smoking of cigarettes causes transient hyperglycemia in human beings. Haggard and Greenberg,l Caponnette,2 Tbppner,3 Burstein and Goldenberg,4 and Lundberg and Thyselius-Lundberg5 found in nondiabetic habitual smokers an increase in the level of the fasting blood sugar after smoking and a similar effect was produced by intramuscular injection of nicotine in some animals studied but not in all.2 The parenteral injection of various amounts of nicotine into animals caused a mild to moderate transient hyperglycemia according to Nicolaysen,6 Leloir,7 Wilson and DeEds,8 Mosinger and associates,9 Kobayashi,10 and Hazard and Vaille.1" On the other hand, there is also evidence that a change in the concentration of blood sugar does not take place after smoking. Dill, Edwards, and Forbes12 reported that 90 per cent of their 60 subjects did not have a significant increase in the level of the fasting blood sugar after smoking. Furthermore, Cristol13 could demonstrate no change in the level of the fasting blood sugar in 175 medical students after each had smoked three fourths of 2 cigarettes. Ssalischtscheff14 was the only investigator who observed hypoglycemia during smoking by 5 nonsmokers and 6 smokers, but all his subjects showed signs of nicotine intoxication when the determinations of the blood sugar were done.