1984 Volume 27 Issue 4 Pages 481-487
The urinary excretion of polyols was determined in order to examine the metabolism of polyols in diabetic patients with complications.
One-hour morning urinary samples after overnight fasting were collected from 8 normal healthy subjects, 5 diabetic patients without complications and 9 diabetic patients with complications. The urine was desalted and glucose was removed as osazone.Polyols were isolated on a QAE-Sephadex column and then trimethylsilylated or acetylated for gas-liquid chromatography. By this method, the interference of large amounts of urinary glucose in the determination of polyols was eliminated. In healthy subjects, the percentages of excretion of tetritol (erythritol, threitol), pentitol (ribitol, arabinitol, xylitol) and hexitol (mannitol, sorbitol, galactitol, myoinositol) were 41.7%, 34.8% and 23.5% of the total polyols, respectively. In diabetic patiens who were under good control by treatment with insulin, the excretion pattern of polyols was similar to that of the healthy subjects.In contrast, in diabetic patients with severe complications of cataract, retinopathy, neuropathy and nephropathy, the excretions of erythritol, ribitol and arabinitol were lower and those of mannitol and myoinositol were higher than in the healthy subjects, although the excretions of sorbitol and galactitol were unchanged.
These results suggest that the abnormal metabolism of glucose in diabetes may affect not only the metabolism of sorbitol but also that of other polyols.
