SUBSTITUTES FOR BREAD FOR DIABETICS 271 



the importance of the great changes which physical-chemical 

 adsorption is likely to induce in colloidal systems. 



Respiration Experiments in Diabetes. Reference has al- 

 ready been made to the fact that we cannot seriously attri- 

 bute any general reduction of oxidation processes to the 

 diabetic organism. Numerous respiration experiments, first 

 by Pettenkofer and Voit and later by other investigators, 76 

 have shown in diabetics either normal ratios or in some 

 instances a notable increase in the utilization of oxygen, 77 

 just as has been noted in case of animals with pancreatic 

 diabetes and supposedly due to stimulations caused by the 

 sugar and acetone bodies. 78 



The hypothesis of Falta 79 that diabetes is due to some 

 disturbance in the equilibrium between the internal secre- 

 tory glands (pancreas, the chromaffine system, the thyroid 

 and parathyroids) which are presumed to regulate the 

 metabolism of carbohydrate material, will be reverted to 

 later. 



Of course it is impossile here to take up fully the matter 

 of dietetic treatment of diabetes, desirable and important 

 as it is for the practitioner ; at best it must suffice to briefly 

 refer to a few points of special biochemical interest. 



Substitutes for Bread for Diabetics. The fact that lasvu- 

 lose is invariably assimilated with more readiness by the 

 diabetic economy than dextrose has led to the employment of 

 its polysaccharide, inulin (which occurs in Jerusalem arti- 

 choke meal, black salsify and artichokes) as an article of diet 

 for diabetics. Experiments in Naunyn's clinic have, how- 

 ever, indicated that while occasional use of this sugar or its 

 polysaccharide is well tolerated, the toleration soon de- 



76 Leo, Katzenstein, Weintraud and Laves, Magnus-Levy, Mohr. Litera- 

 ture: A. Jaquet, Ergebn. d. Physiol., 2', 555-556, 1903; Umber, Lehrb. d. 

 Ernahr., p. 171, 1909. 



77 Cf. the experiments of W. Falta (with Benedict), conducted with the 

 respiration calorimeter in Boston: Wiener klin. Wochenschr., 22, 565, 1909. 



78 A. Leimdorfer (v. Noorden's Clinic), Biochem. Zeitschr., 40, 326, 1912. 

 "W. Falta (v. Noorden's Clinic), Zeitschr. f. klin. Med., 66, 5-6, 1908. 



