Experimental Diarrhea

Abstract

Intraluminal glucose increases the absorption of water and sodium in the small intestine by a mechanism which appears to be intact in cholera, a diarrheal disease characterized by intestinal secretion. heal water and. electrolyte secretion is also an important determinant of diarrhea in rat salmonellosis. Therefore, transport of water and sodium from a 118 mm Na-56 mm glucose solution, which was shown to result in maximal jejunal and ileal transport rates in control animals, was studied in rats with Salmonella typhimurium enterocolitis. Unlike cholera, the absorptive mechanisms in rat salmonellosis are disrupted, so that a reversal of ileal secretion, through glucose-stimulated water and sodium transport, could be demonstrated in only half of the animals studied. In addition, glucose-stimulated Na absorption in the infected jejunum was significantly less than in the control animals. Thus use of a glucose-electrolyte solution to repair negative fluid and electrolyte balance in this disease model would not be uniformly successful. Although the cause of the jejunal defect in glucose-stimulated transport in our model has not been elucidated, investigation of this defect may prove useful to an understanding of the mechanism of glucose-stimulated intestinal fluid and electrolyte transport.