1975 Volume 27 Issue 4 Pages 648-666
In the preceeding paper, it was obvious that adminstered maltose, as measured by maltose-U-14C, is efficiently metabolized as a source of calories after surgical stress with an impaired glucose utilization. Furthermore, a solution of maltose could provide twice as many calories per unit volume as an eguimolar solution of glucose. For this reason, it was thought to be recommended to use maltose as a carbohydrate source instead of glucose in the intravenous hyperalimentation. In this paper, to clarify the influence of maltose as a caloric source on albumin metabolism following studies were undertaken.
Male rabbits, after exposure to surgical stress, were maintained by the intravenous hyperalimentation using hypertonic maltose, glucose and hypertonic amino acid throughout the postoperative periods, and operated and non-operated animals were comparared with the distribution of 125I labelled albumin.
The following results were obtained: The disappearance curves of plasma radioactivities of rabbits subjected to surgical stress were more rapid than in non-operated animals. But there were no significant differences between glucose-treated and maltose-treated groups. The percentage of the labelled albumin remaining in the body and cumulative urinary excretion rate tended to fluctuate more in the groups subjected to the surgical stress than the control subjects. The decrease of radioactivities from blood stream after surgical stress was the slighter in the maltose groups than in the glucose groups. In the control subjects, there were no significant differences between maltose and glucose groups in the degradation rate, albumin turnover rate, intra- and extravascular albumin space. However, after surgical stress, the degradation rate, the albumin turnover rate and extravascular albumin were increased, and the intravascular albumin was decreased. These changes in maltose treated groups were not so remarkable as in glucose treated ones. In the maltose groups subjected to surgical stress, it was disclosed that the halftime- turnover was 3.8 days, the circulating albumin was 8.1g and that the extravascular albumin was 63.7 g.
It is obvious from this experiment that maltose should be recommended in intravenous hyperalimentation because of the favourable effect of maltose on the albumin metabolism following surgery.
