Avitaminosis. X. Further Studies on the Effect of Vitamin B Deficiency on Lipid Metabolism. 20

Abstract

Sure and Smith 1 , 2 have reported preliminary results on the influence of vitamin B deficiency on the concentration of lipids in the blood of the albino rat, indicating that lipemia is a symptom complex in this avitaminosis. Further detailed studies from this laboratory, 21 however, do not substantiate such findings. The reason that led us to subject to a critical analysis the lipemia in polyneuritic nursing young of the albino rat, 2 interpreted as due to vitamin B deficiency, is the fact that no appreciable changes were found in the concentration of either fatty acids, cholesterol, or phospholipids in weaned rats suffering from vitamin B (B₁) deficiency. Furthermore, an analysis of the data of Sure and Smith on lipid changes in the blood of weaned rats on diets deficient in the vitamin B complex, 3 disclosed too many great variations on the same animal from week to week, particularly in the fatty acid determination. It was discovered that carbon dioxide emanating from a close gas burner (which was being used some days during the week) was influencing the fatty acid titer considerably; therefore, all subsequent fatty acid determinations were henceforth carried out in a different room kept as free from the influence of carbon dioxide as possible, a precaution discovered in our laboratory (A. E. C.) before the same disturbing factor was called attention to in a recent paper by Himwich, Friedman, and Spiers. 4 From then on we ceased obtaining great variations in the weekly determinations of blood fatty acids. The work on the vitamin B complex was, consequently, repeated on adult rats depleted until total collapse, and even during the last stages of the avitaminosis, associated with marked inanition, no significant changes were detected in the concentration of either fatty acids or cholesterol of the blood.