Nutrition Investigations. 



279 



In 1902, they conducted researches on two men whose main diet con- 

 sisted of meat and butter or other fat, and beer; to this, in the various 

 experiments, were added respectively (along with sugar, butter, beef 

 extract, etc., used in preparing them) the following substances: 



Experiment I. Green Peas. Experiment II. Ripe Shelled Peas. 

 Experiment III. Red Cabbage. Experiment IV. Canned White 

 Beans. Experiment V. Soldiers' Bread. Experiment VI. Graham 

 Bread. 



From analyses of food and faeces the following results were obtained: 



Hence we see that of the total pentosans in the diet 3.24-20.24 per 

 cent were excreted. Only a little furfurol-yielding substance was 

 found in the urine. From the small percentage recovered in these 

 experiments, Konig and Reinhardt (120) conclude that the pentosans 

 are to a high degree utilized by man, but they take no account of pos- 

 sible destruction by bacteria. ^ 



Since pentosans do disappear from the alimentary tract of men and 

 animals, it behooves us to consider whether, on the assumption that 

 they are hydrolyzed like starch, the pentose sugars so produced are 

 as well utilized as dextrose. Konig and Reinhardt (120) found some 

 furfurol-yielding substance in the urine, and Blumenthal (93) observes 

 that after eating huckleberries, cherries and prunes, pentosans are 

 excreted, but no reducing sugar. Cominotti (100) finds pentoses ab- 

 sent from the urine of man on a meat diet, but always present on a 

 mixed diet. He agrees with Konig and Reinhardt that the output in 

 the urine is small compared with the amount of pentosans in the food, 

 and proposes to investigate the possibility of glycogen formation from 

 pentosans. 



The behavior of pentoses in the body has been exhaustively re\dewed 

 by Neuberg(127).2 It appears from the work of Cremer (102, 103), 



1 Cramer (101) has shown (according to a recent review, the original paper was 

 not accessible) that bacteria are essential to hemicellulose transformation. 



'^For a recent discussion of the absorption and utilization of pentoses see A. Mag- 

 nus-Levy, Oppenheimer's Handbuch der Biochemie der Menschen und der Tiere, 

 1909, Vol. IV, pp. 395-407. 



