Abstract
The observation that marked skin changes develop in rats suffering from the unsaturated fatty acid deficiency disease described by Burr and Burr 1 suggested the possibility that certain dermatological disorders of childhood, such as infantile eczema, might be dependent in part at least upon this type of dietary deficiency. A few preliminary observations on eczematous babies given liberal supplements of unsaturated fatty acids in their diets in addition to the routine treatment were sufficiently encouraging to suggest the desirability of careful study of the blood lipids in this disease. In order to determine whether any relationship might exist between the two clinical entities, similar blood studies were undertaken on eczematous infants and on rats suffering from the unsaturated fatty acid deficiency.
The present paper deals exclusively with the results in the cases of infantile eczema. The total iodine absorption of the serum was first determined on one or more occasions in 10 cases of eczema and in 16 normal infants of similar age. This was followed by determinations of the total fatty acids, cholesterol, total iodine absorption of the serum and the iodine number of the serum fatty acids in 5 normal and 6 eczematous infants.
All blood samples were collected between 12 and 16 hours after a meal. Bloor's methods 2 were used to determine the cholesterol and total fatty acids in the serum. The Rosenmund-Kuhnhenn 3 method as modified by Page, Pasternak and Burt4 was used to determine the iodine absorption of the serum lipids.
The preliminary data on the total iodine absorption values of the sera are as follows: The average for 21 determinations on 10 infants with eczema was 383 mg. (range 280-487) iodine absorbed per 100 cc. serum.
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