Abstract
The work of Chaikoff and Soskin 1 and Mirsky 2 has shown very definitely that the ketone bodies are produced only in the liver. Are the ketone bodies so formed utilized by the tissues in nutritional conditions giving rise to ketosis? This note deals with this question.
A male human was kept on a ketogenic diet for several days. After a definite ketonuria had developed (5 gm. ketone bodies per day), food was withheld during the morning and blood ketone concentrations at 7 A. M. and 11 A. M. were determined (the first blood 12 hours after the previous meal). The 7 A. M. blood contained 26.6 mg. ketones %, the 11 A. M. sample 10.3. The experiment was repeated on 2 other mornings with the following results:
1. Blood ketones 7:20 A. M. 26.4, 11 A. M. 9.5.
2. Blood ketones 750 A. M. 35.9, 12 Noon 8.8.
The results of Chaikoff and Soskin indicate that the ketone bodies diffuse very readily throughout the tissues of the body, so that we may assume that the subject (wt. 70 kilos) had at least 50 liters of water in his body carrying the ketones bodies in the same concentration as the blood. On this assumption the amount of ketones disappearing from the body during the mornings cited must have been (difference in concentrations of the blood ketones X 50 liters), 8.15 gm., 8.45 gm., 13.5 gm. The ketone output in the urines of these periods was 472 mg., 278 mg., 538 mg. This suggests a very considerable utilization of ketones by the tissues under a definitely ketogenic condition-averaging 2.44 gm. per hour, and does not include what might have been produced concurrently by the liver. All the foregoing estimations were carried out by the methods of Van Slyke (urine) and Van Slyke and Fitz (blood).
Get full access to this article
View all access options for this article.