The Effect of Glucose on Ketosis.

Abstract

During a study of the influence of insulin on fat and ketone bodies in the blood of depancreatized dogs, several observations were made on the effect of glucose, without insulin, on ketosis. Since clinical experience has shown that glucose given to patients in diabetic coma often ameliorates the symptoms of ketonuria, it is of interest to determine whether or not the same effect can be demonstrated on animals made diabetic by removal of the pancreas.

Observations on animals under the influence of phlorhizin show that the administration of glucose is followed by a decrease or disappearance of ketone bodies, a phenomenon similar to that noted by the clinician.

Whatever may be the effect of glucose on animals rendered diabetic by the drug phlorhizin, a similar effect is not necessarily to be expected on depancreatized animals, for the physiological conditions of the two experimental animals are quite unlike. Although the exact effect of phlorhizin on the animal has not been definitely established, recent investigations indicate that there is no impairment in the ability of the tissues to metabolize glucose when present in normal quantities, and that its action is largely renal. In the depancreatized animal the tissues loose their power of metabolism because of the lack of insulin. Therefore studies of the ketolytic influence of glucose on phlorhizinized animals throw little or no light on any effect, or lack of effect, that it may have on depancreatized animals.

The present observations were made on 4 totally depancreatized dogs kept alive by the administration of insulin twice daily until recovery from the operation and resulting complications. Results of the operation were confirmed at autopsy. The degree of ketosis developed in the animals after the withdrawal of insulin varied, depending largely on the nutritive condition of the animal and the time lapsing between the withdrawal of insulin and the beginning of the experiment.