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METABOLISM 



ether effect is that a mixture of blood and ether has a higher solvent power 

 for fat than blood alone. The explanation for the chloroform and mor- 

 phine effects is that a certain amount of breakdown of the tissue cells, 

 in which lipins are set free, supervenes upon the action of these narcotics. 



The blood fat also becomes enormously increased in about forty hours 

 after the administration of phlorhizin, and on the second or third day 

 after the administration of phosphorus. The special significance of 

 these facts we shall consider later in connection with the relationship of 

 the liver to fat metabolism. 



By comparison of the fatty acid, lecithin, and cholesterol contents of 

 blood during fat absorption, it has been found that there is a steady but 

 very variable increase in fatty acid, accompanied by an increase in 

 lecithin, which varies from 10 to 35 per cent, but does not run strictly 

 parallel with the fatty-acid increase. At a later stage there may also be 

 an increase in cholesterol; indeed in persistent lipemia cholesterol may 

 become more abundant than lecithin. It looks as if fat were absorbed 

 into the corpuscles where it is transformed into lecithin which is then 

 returned to the plasma, cholesterol also appearing when the lecithin 

 reaches a certain concentration. Separate analyses of blood plasma and 

 whole blood show the increase of lecithin to be much more marked in 

 the corpuscles than in the plasma, whereas the fatty-acid increase is 

 most pronounced in the plasma. 



To illustrate some of these points the following table will be of value. 

 In it is shown the average distribution of fatty acid, lecithin and choles- 

 terol in normal individuals and in cases of diabetes, in which disease, 



BLOOD LIPOIDS IN NORMAL AND IN DIABETIC PERSONS 



