Post-prandial acyl ghrelin infusion in heart failure patients increases gastric emptying rate

Figures

• 

  Fig. 1. Ghrelin infusion results in higher paracetamol concentration early in a meal. Data is median and IQR. An asterisk indicates P < 0.05

• 

  Fig. 2. Time to peak and distribution of peak paracetamol concentration in HFrEF patients indicates acyl ghrelin increased GER. A Time to peak paracetamol concentration was lower in the acyl ghrelin infusion group (30, 30–90 min) (median, IQR) than the placebo group (90, 60–120 min), P < 0.05. Box plot is median and 10, 25, 75, and 90 percentile; dot is outlier. B A higher percentage of the acyl ghrelin infusion group than placebo reached peak paracetamol concentration by 30 min. The placebo group lagged behind the acyl ghrelin treatment group at all subsequent times. There were no anomalous peaks at 0 min baseline. At follow-up 2–5 days later (labeled “2880” min), paracetamol was not detected in the placebo group and was 0 ± 17 µM in the acyl ghrelin treatment group as a result of detection in four subjects. No false positives were found during validation of paracetamol assays. The X-axis is scaled as category to optimally display all time points. Bars are percent of patients within each group that peaked at indicated blood draw time point

• 

  Fig. 3. Time course of acyl ghrelin treatment effect on CO in HFrEF patients stratified by rapid or slow GER. Baseline (t = 0) CO for the rapid GER sub-group was 4.08 (3.88–4.88) l/min [median (IQR)] and 3.95 (3.35–4.11) l/min for the slow GER sub-group (P = 0.31). None of the time points in the slow GER sub-group reached significance compared to baseline. Data points are median and IQR, each patient normalized to own baseline defined as 100%. An asterisk indicates P < 0.05, double asterisks indicate P < 0.01, triple asterisks indicate P < 0.001 in pairwise comparison to baseline within group

• 

  Fig. 4. Hunger scores in HFrEF patients treated with acyl ghrelin. Data is stratified by rapid or slow GER and is normalized to baseline (median and IQR). Although the rapid GER group achieved the highest median score by the last time point, there were no significant differences