Concerning antiketogenesis

Abstract

It is a well-known fact that the withdrawal of carbohydrates from the diet of normal individuals is followed by the appearance of ketone bodies in the urine. Individuals that have interference with their power to utilize carbohydrates, as diabetics, develop degrees of ketonuria that are proportional to the severity of the disturbances in their carbohydrate metabolism. It is also established definitely that these ketone bodies are formed normally in the intermediary metabolism of fat and of certain amino acids, and that with the oxidation of carbohydrates the ketone bodies suffer oxidation. The carbohydrates therefore are known as antiketogenetic. For a number of years we have been engaged in trying to solve the problem how the carbohydrates exercise their antiketogenetic powers, and to find a chemical explanation for it. We fed to diabetic animals every known chemical compound that may play a röcle in the intermediary metabolism of carbohydrates, and we found that they may be divided into two classes. The first consisting of those substances like glyceric aldehyde, dioxyacetone, pyruvic aldehyde, pyruvic acid and lactic acid, which when given to diabetic animals are completely and directly converted into glucose. They all possess the power of reversible reaction in the body, i.e., they all can be converted from one into the other, and possess but slight antiketogenetic properties because when given to diabetics the main force of the reaction is upwards towards the glucose stage, and as such they become excreted in the urine. Practically none of these are burnt in the body of the diabetic animal. The second consisting of substances like acetaldehyde and perhaps also ethylalcohol. The reaction towards these from glucose and its intermediary products is irreversible, when given to diabetics, they possess marked antiketogenetic powers.