Possible Interaction: Choline and Insulin

“In the early 1930s, Banting and Best, the discoverers of insulin, found that choline could prevent the development of fatty liver disease (steatosis) in pancreatectomized dogs treated with insulin.”

“We find that choline uptake activity measured after acute addition of 20 nM insulin is significantly lower in cells that were grown for 24 h in media containing insulin compared to cells grown in the absence of insulin.”

“We investigated the mechanism(s) by which choline modulates insulin sensitivity.”

“It is concluded that CDP-choline or its cholinergic metabolites phosphocholine and choline increases circulating insulin concentrations by increasing muscarinic and nicotinic cholinergic neurotransmission in the insulin secreting beta-cells.”

“These results suggest that insulin increases the phosphatidyl choline and disaturated phosphatidyl choline content in lung tissue in fetal rabbits in vivo, and that in the presence of hydrocortisone, insulin appears to have an additive effect.”

“ Choline incorporation was significantly lower after a 4-hour pulse in low glucose (+/- insulin ) than under continuing high glucose (+/- insulin) conditions (P < .01).”

“ Choline (1-5 mM) alone had no effect on DNA synthesis, but it increased the combined effects of lower concentrations of ethanolamine analogues and insulin.”

“ Insulin also stimulated choline uptake but only after a two day delay, suggesting that the normal program for cholinergic differentiation in the chick retina was induced by insulin.”

“ Insulin also stimulated the incorporation of choline and glucose into phosphatidylcholine and disaturated phosphatidylcholine.”

“Diabetic animals treated with insulin displayed reductions in phosphatidyl choline , lysophosphatidyl choline, phosphatidyl ethanolamine, phosphatidyl serine, phosphatidyl inositol, and phosphatidic acid to levels approximating those found in intact (control) animals.”