The “Fat-Metabolism” Hormone and Hyperglycemia

Abstract

The finding of Anselmino and Hoffman, 1 , 2 that a fraction from the anterior pituitary, when injected into rats, markedly increases the acetone bodies in the blood, received support from the work of Funk, 3 , 4 who, using rats as test animals, showed that this peculiar “fat-metabolism” hormone is present in the urine of pregnancy and in normal urine. Funk records large increases in urinary acetone bodies. Katzman and Doisy, 5 using their method for getting the gonadotropic factor of pregnancy urine, find that hyperglycemia is produced by these extracts. They worked with rabbits.

Believing that Funk, on the one hand, and Katzman and Doisy, on the other, were working with an extract which contained the same active material, we prepared our extracts according to Funk's method and tested them on rabbits for blood-sugar, according to Katzman and Doisy. In addition, we also determined acetone bodies in the blood. The results are presented in Tables I and II.

Not only do we get hyperglycemia comparable to that obtained by Katzman and Doisy, but we also get a very definite increase in the acetone in the blood. We also get a decrease in CO₂-combining power and an increase in lactic acid. We may add that, aside from one result which appears anomalous, all attempts so far to obtain appreciable increases in urinary glucose and acetone have failed.

It is, perhaps, somewhat premature to interpret the significance of these results. However, as a tentative hypothesis, we may regard this anterior pituitary-like substance eliminated in the urine as being involved in carbohydrate metabolism, primarily, and in fat metabolism, secondarily.