Walter Goldfarb

The Sugar Tolerance of Alcoholic Patients

Summary and Conclusions The sugar tolerance was studied in a group of 18 alcoholic patients. On admission there was a marked diminution of the sugar tolerance, which improved after one week in the hospital on a normal diet. It is suggested that the diminished tolerance was due to an undernourished state previous to admission.

The vitamin B complex in relation to food intake during hyperthyroidism.

Dogs 1 and 2 had maintained their appetite for a diet of dog biscuit for at least 3 months. After 5 gm. of desiccated thyroid were added to their daily ration they exhibited a loss of appetite and consequent loss of weight for approximately 2 weeks. During the next 3 weeks occasional administrations of vitamin B were followed by restoration of the urge to eat. The diet was then changed to the artificial one developed by Cowgill 1 and daily doses of vitamin B were administered, whereupon appetite was restored and the animals proceeded to regain their initial body weight. Dogs 3 and 4 had exhibited the characteristic anorexia on the artificial food mixture in 23 and 31 days respectively. When 5 gm. of desiccated thyroid were added to their daily dietary, anorexia supervened in dog 3 in 12 days, while dog 4 lost its appetite in 21 days. These results harmonize with the theory of Plimmer, 2 and Cowgill and Klotz 3 that the amount of vitamin B required by the organism is determined chiefly by its caloric requirement.

The Effect of Glucose on the Oxidation of Alcohol in vitro

The metabolism of alcohol has been the subject of numerous recent publications in which it has been suggested that the oxidation of alcohol may be catalyzed by the simultaneous oxidation of carbohydrate. The ingestion of food (Southgate 1 ) or glucose (Bornstein and Loewy 2 ) along with alcohol resulted in a lower blood concentration of alcohol. Carpenter and Lee 3 found that after the ingestion of glucose or fructose with alcohol, the alcohol was present in the expired air for a shorter period. Clark and Morrissey 4 measured the rate of disappearance of alcohol from the blood of dogs given doses of 3 g per kilo. They found that the administration of insulin and glucose accelerated the disappearance of alcohol. More recently Clark, Morrissey and Fazekas 5 have shown that the liver of depancreatized cats could not oxidize alcohol in the Warburg apparatus. In this respect the metabolism of alcohol in the body resembles that of the acetone substances. Shaffer 6 showed that the oxidation of acetoacetic acid in alkaline solution by hydrogen peroxide was accelerated when glucose was simultaneously oxidized. We are here reporting similar experiments on the effect of glucose on the in vitro oxidation of alcohol. The control solution contained 100 mg % of alcohol, 20 milli-equivalents percent of hydrogen peroxide, 1% sodium hydroxide, and 1 mg % ferric ammonium citrate. The experimental solution contained 1% glucose in addition. The reaction was studied at 25°C Alcohol analyses were made at various intervals during the following 24 hours by the macro-method of Abels. 7 The accuracy of the method was estimated from a series of analyses of 39 known solutions ranging from 30 to 110 mg % in which the average error was 5.1 mg %. In 34 instances the error was less than 10 mg %, while in the remaining 5 it was 15 mg %.

Effect of Cysteine on the Metabolism of the Isolated Brain Tissue

We are reporting experiments elsewhere on the effects of cysteine and cystine on the metabolism of rats (Goldfarb, Fazekas, Himwich 1 ). The present communication is a report of further experiments on isolated brain tissue. The observations were limited to the effects of cysteine, since cystine was soluble in solutions too alkaline or acid to support respiration. In all experiments the tissue was suspended in a phosphate medium buffered at pH 7.4 with lactate as a substrate. The tissues were inserted in the Warburg respirometer and one-half hour elapsed, the time required for equilibration, before observations were begun. The data disclose that the O2 consumption of the brain tissue treated with cysteine exhibits a diphasic response. During the first 30 to 45 minutes there is a marked stimulation which is followed by a profound depression in the later periods. Cysteine, moreover, retains an early stimulatory effect on O2 consumption despite the presence of cyanide. In order to obtain further information as to the character of the increased O2 consumption, a group of observations was made on the R.Q. after the addition of cysteine hydrochloride in a concentration of 0.01 M. In most instances the R.Q. of unwashed, minced brain tissue is approximately 0.9, (Himwich, Fazekas, Barker, Hurlburt 2 ) and in these studies the addition of cysteine resulted in a depression of the quotient. In 8 experiments they were found to be 0.50, 0.65, 0.65, 0.54, 0.59, 0.52, 0.30, and 0.83. The presence of the sulphydryl group had obviously caused a consumption of O2 without the simultaneous production of CO2.