Excretion of Keto Acids and Hydroxyphenyl Compounds in Pernicious Anemia

Abstract

It has been found in this laboratory that the urinary excretion values for keto acids of patients with untreated pernicious anemia in relapse show a marked decrease when liver extract is administered by intramuscular injection. Since there are several indications that tyrosine metabolism may be disturbed in pernicious anemia, it was of interest to measure the urinary hydroxyphenyl compounds in this disease in order to determine whether or not their excretion values could be correlated with those of the keto acids. Previous experiments by Becher1 have shown a rise in blood phenols in pernicious anemia and, in contrast, Volterra2 observed a low excretion of volatile phenols in the urine in untreated pernicious anemia and a greatly increased excretion of these compounds after liver therapy.Twenty-four-hour urine sample were collected in acid and analyzed for keto acids by the method of Penrose and Quastel3 and for hydroxyphenyl compounds by the Medes modification of the method of Folin and Ciocalteu.4 Analys...