Metallic Glutamates in Nutritional Anemia. ∗ †

Abstract

Our knowledge of some of the many aspects of the problem of anemia has been enlarged recently by studies on the milk anemia of the rat. Thus from the work of the Wisconsin investigators the importance of Cu in Hb regeneration is now generally appreciated. Cu therapy, however, does not present any particular difficulty, while Fe deficiencies and Fe therapy still remain important problems in the clinic. For such investigations milk anemia is a convenient experimental approach. Although much work has been done there is still some uncertainty regarding the response of anemic rats to small doses of Fe. 1 , 2 Certain investigators 3 , 4 have reported that glutamic acid supplements Fe in nutritional anemia, but this has not been confirmed by others. 5

The following experiments were carried out with about 300 rats in order to clarify some of the discrepancies in regard to the effect of Fe in anemia and to determine whether glutamic acid could be employed as an effective vehicle for the administration of minerals in secondary anemias.

Experimental. Most of the rats employed in the experiments were bred according to a modification of Elvehjem's technique. 6 The anemia producing diet was powdered whole milk (Klim, containing 1.8-2.0 p.p.m. of Cu and 14-17 p.p.m. of Fe) which was fed in the solid form. Hb estimations (Newcomer) were made weekly and red blood counts at frequent intervals. The inorganic Fe and Cu salts employed for supplements were of the highest purity; the ferrous glutamate was Cu-free and the glutamic acid contained less than 0.2 mg. Cu per 100 gm.

Some of the experiments with FeCl₃, ferrous glutamate and glutamic acid are summarized in Table I. It appears from this table that Hb regeneration is just as effective with ferrous glutamate (Group 1) as with ferric chloride (Group 2) and that addition of glutamic acid produced similar results (compare groups 2 and 3). When glutamic acid (Group 5) was added to supplements of Fe+Cu (Group 4) the hematopoietic response appeared to be slightly greater.