Effects of Salts and Adrenal Cortical Extracts upon Toxicity of Drugs

Abstract

Verzar and his coworkers1 in discussing the possible relationships between the adrenal cortex and fat, carbohydrate, and electrolyte metabolism, have postulated that the adrenal cortex controls a wide number of metabolic processes by regulating phosphorylation processes.One of the primary arguments of these workers is that the effects of iodoacetate poisoning seemed to reproduce some of the symptoms of adrenal insufficiency, such as impaired selective intestinal absorption of glucose, muscular asthenia, steatorrhea, lowered body temperature, fluid loss by diarrhea, etc. These effects are ascribed to a specific inhibitory action of iodoacetate upon phosphorylation.Laszt2 has found that NaCl therapy antagonizes the iodoacetate effects in the intact rat, with respect to fatal toxicity, and impaired intestinal glucose absorption. This observation was offered as a possible explanation of some of the beneficial effects of NaCl therapy in adrenal insufficiency.It appeared possible that this so-called “experiment...