Abstract
Depression of the blood inorganic phosphates after the administration of dextrose has been demonstrated by Perlzweig, Latham, and Keefer. 1 This observation has been confirmed by Sokhey and Allen, 2 Harrop and Benedict, 3 , 4 and Bolliger and Hartman 5 with both humans and animals receiving dextrose orally and parenterally. Although this fall in blood inorganic phosphates after the administration of dextrose appears to be the rule, it does not occur invariably. Blatherwick, Bell, and Hill 6 in a series of experiments in which dextrose was given orally to human subjects, found no consistent change in the phosphate level and state that there is “sometimes an increase, or a decrease or no change at all.”
Insulin, on the other hand, has been found by Wigglesworth, Woodrow, Smith and Winter 7 to produce a marked drop in the plasma inorganic phosphate level of the rabbit. Cori and Cori, 8 Perlzweig, Latham and Keefer, 1 and Vollmer 9 have reported similar results, and further, have demonstrated that injections of epinephrin produce the same effect. Cori 10 and Cori and Cori 11 in seeking an explanation for these changes found a marked increase in the hexose-phosphate content of the skeletal musculature of the normal animal after the injection of either insulin or epinephrin. No change in blood or muscle phosphates could be demonstrated in the adrenal-ectomized animal, and they concluded that the depression of the blood inorganic phosphate level following: the injection of insulin was the result of an increase in the secretion of epinephrin called forth by hypoglycemia. Ellsworth and Weinstein 12 found varying degrees of change in the blood inorganic phosphates in adrenalectomized dogs after the injection of insulin.
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