An experiment on the absorption of glucose given by rectum

Abstract

For many years it has been accepted by clinicians that glucose given by rectum is absorbed immediately into the blood, and surgeons constantly use such a procedure as a part of their postoperative therapy. Because of the difficulties attending the procedure there are comparatively few controlled experiments on the effect of glucose so administered in the literature. The effect of carbohydrate feeding on acetonuria has been clearly demonstrated by many experiments during the past few years, and it was determined to test the rectal absorption of glucose by studies of the effect produced upon experimental acetonuria.

The subject of the experiment (one of the authors, D. C. W.) was a man 5 ft. 9 1/4 in. tall who weighed 165 pounds, and whose basal metabolism, as measured by the portable Benedict calorimeter was 1700 calories. He received the diet recently discussed by Hubbard and Wright 1 for four days. This diet furnished 2,142 calories—twenty per cent. more than the basal requirement—and consisted of 54 grams of protein, 54 grams of carbohydrate, and 190 grams of fat. Ten per cent. of the calories in this diet are furnished by protein, ten per cent. by carbohydrate, and eighty by fat 2 , 3 . The total food intake was probably not sufficient for the needs of the subject.

Acetonuria developed gradually as shown in Table I, and on the fourth day of the experiment, before the acetone excretion had reached its highest level, an enema consisting of 300 C.C. of a 5 per cent. glucose solution was given. Table II shows figures for the morning of the day before the enema was given, for the specimen collected just before the enema was given, and for the specimen which corresponded to the period during which the enema was retained.