Mathematical Modeling of the Glucose Homeostatic System in Humans
Abstract
One of the most interesting physiological control systems in man is the one for glucose homeostasis. Proper functioning of this complex and highly sensitive system is essential for life. Although often thought of as being mainly involved with carbohydrate metabolism, a remarkable organ, the liver, provides a means through which protein metabolism and lipid metabolism play an important role in the glucose homeostatic system. Even a brief perusal of the section on carbohydrate metabolism in biochemistry and/or physiology texts will convince one of the great difficulty in describing this system with a mathematical model which will at the same time be sufficiently simple so as to allow validification with in vivo data and sufficiently complex to provide new insight into the mechanisms involved. In spite of the complexity, there have been numerous attempts to develop mathematical models for all or parts of the glucose homeostatic system. We give a brief but incomplete survey on these attempts. We make no effort at describing all previous models, but have tried to make a judicious choice of models so as to illustrate in our discussions a number of differing approaches.
Document Details
- Document Type
- Technical Report
- Publication Date
- Jul 01, 1972
- Accession Number
- ADA557015
Entities
People
- Christin A. Carter
- H. Thomas Banks
Organizations
- Brown University