Some problems of intermediary metabolism.

  • Chittenden, R. H. (Russell Henry), 1856-1943.
Date:
[1905]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Some problems of intermediary metabolism. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Augustus C. Long Health Sciences Library at Columbia University and Columbia University Libraries/Information Services, through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the the Augustus C. Long Health Sciences Library at Columbia University and Columbia University.

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    bolic conditions, of these two somewhat divergent factors, but I believe that the conspicuous increase of uric acid noticed under many conditions of life is clue as much or more to increased inhibition of the oxidation of uric acid as to augmented production of uric acid. This is conspicu- ously true in the influence exerted by alcoholic drinks on the uric acid-content of the blood and urine. Recent work carried on in the writer's laboratory* has shown quite conclusively that in man the ingestion of alco- holic fluids with purin-containing foods increases at once the output of uric acid in the urine. Alcohol, however, does not produce this result when taken with a light diet or one free from purin compounds. In other words, alcohol influences only the uric acid of exogenous origin, in con- formity witli the well-known gouty tendencies of high pro- teid feeding combined with consumption of alcoholic fluids. Alcohol is well understood to interfere with the oxidative processes of the liver, and it is more than probable that its influence on the uric acid content of the blood lies in the direction of inhibiting the action of the oxidase which, pres- ent in the liver and other tissues, normally destroys or oxidizes a certain proportion of the uric acid formed. This being true, we see another illustration of so-called perverted metabolism due entirely to a change in the rate of action of an intra-cellular oxidase. In any reference to the origin of uric acid in the body, too much stress cannot be laid upon the easy convertibility of the free purin bases adenin, guanin, hypoxanthin and xanthin into uric acid,| by virtue of the action of the intra- cellular enzymes present in so many of the organs and tissues. In the ordinary foodstuffs, however, as in meat : The Effect of Alcohol and Alcoholic Fluids upon the id In Mni. America! Journal of Physiology, vol. L2, p. 18. fSee Kriiger and Schmid: Dii Bntatehung der KarnRflure auH freien Paxil] /'.itschrif't I', physiologische Chexnie, Band 34, p, 549.