The Starvation Ketosis of a Monkey.

Abstract

In sharp contrast to human beings, most animals (dog, cat, pig, steer, goat, guinea pig, rat, rabbit, etc.) appear to develop only slight ketosis when starved. In man, on the other hand, starvation ketosis is a regular phenomenon, and is apparently a necessary consequence of the failure to metabolize a sufficient amount of carbohydrate. And conversely it is believed that the metabolism of carbohydrate is essential for the normal complete combustion of the precursors of the acetone bodies. This seems applicable only to man. The ability to avoid ketosis without the direct intervention of metabolizing glucose appears to be possessed by most animals. Man is the exception. That animals have high tolerance for the acetone bodies is indicated by the results of acetoacetic acid injection (dog 1 , mouse 2 , cat 3 ). This ability of animals to burn acetone bodies (apparently without the antiketogenic action of carbohydrate) would seem to be not an acquired property, but rather a function normal to all animals with the exception of man in whom it appears to have been lost. A parallel case is perhaps the ability to further metabolize uric acid to allantoin, possessed in general by mammalia, but lacked by man and the chimpanzee.

The following observation has been made on a fasting monkey, which developed a ketosis quite comparable to that of man which was promptly abolished by glucose and food. Whether the results are representative of the behavior of the species or of primates generally can be determined only after observations on other individuals, though the writer sees no reason to suppose that the behavior of this monkey is exceptional.