Occurrence of Cataract in Experimental Pancreatic Diabetes. ∗

Abstract

Despite the fact that the existence of “diabetic cataract” as a distinct clinical entity has been questioned by some investigators, 1 , 2 , 3 , 4 cataractous changes in the eyes of diabetic patients are not uncommon. Spalding and Curtis 2 reported the presence of cataract in 10% of Joslin's diabetic subjects while Von Noorden 5 found such lens changes in 13% of his diabetic cases. The age at which cataracts appeared in these patients is obviously of importance in determining the significance of these percentages, for cataractous changes of some degree occur frequently in normal subjects during late-middle and old age. In none of the cases reported by Spalding and Curtis 2 did cataracts occur earlier than 53 years of age. Twenty-eight of Von Noorden's 62 diabetic patients with cataracts, however, were under the age of 50. The presence of cataracts in young adults and in children suffering from diabetes is of more significance in establishing a relation between these 2 conditions, for lenticular changes other than congenital cataract are rare in normal individuals of these age periods. Although cataracts have been reported in diabetic children^6-11 their occurrence in juvenile diabetes is not common. In a careful survey of the diabetic patients studied in Joslin's clinic from 1898 to 1931 White 10 reported 15 cases with cataractous lenses among 750 subjects who developed diabetes in childhood, and 4 cases showing similar lens pathology among 251 patients in whom the onset of the disease occurred in adolescence.

In the present investigation a study was made of the eyes of completely depancreatized dogs kept alive with insulin. This animal is particularly well adapted for studies of this nature, for in addition to providing an animal with pancreatic diabetes in which the diagnosis is never in question, such animals can be kept under well-controlled conditions.

The animals recorded as diabetic are completely depancreatized dogs that have been maintained in this laboratory in good nutritional condition for long periods of time by means of a suitable diet and insulin. Each dog received twice daily, at 8:00 a. m. and at 4:00 p. m., a diet consisting of 225 gm. of lean meat, 70 gm. of sucrose, and 5 gm. of bone ash. Vitamin B concentrate 12 was added to the diet at least 3 times per week. Vitamins A and D were supplied as the unsaponifiable portion of cod liver oil or as raw cod liver oil. The animals were injected with 8 units of insulin at each time of feeding. The 24-hour sample of urine of the animals al-wavs contained glucose, in varying- amounts from day to day.