According to some papers, most of the labile protein in the body takes the form of flavoprotein. When the labile protein is increased in the body, the excretion of riboflavin in the urine decreases.
The authors studied the relationship between the excretion of riboflavin in urine and the nitrogen reserve under certain amounts of protein administration, on subjects in various states of protein depletion. Prior to and throughout the experiment, 10 mg. of riboflavin was administered every day, thus saturating the subjects with riboflavin.
The experiments were performed, using as subjects, four male students, who, for one week, received a standard diet which contained daily 1.25 g. of protein per kg. of body weight. The diet of the subjects was then changed to either 40 g. of protein or 25 g. of protein or 0 g. of protein per day for a stipulated period. After maintaining the nitrogen equilibrium at each of these periods, 20 g. of whole egg protein were administered to the subjects. Every day the riboflavin excretion in the urine was determined. Most of the periods of protein nutrition were for approximately one week.
Results were as follows :
1. The riboflavin retention in the body increased when an excess of protein was administered and the retention of nitrogen per gram of excess protein which had been administered showed a negative correlation with absorbed nitrogen from the administered diet. The one exception was the protein free diet. The riboflavin retention showed a positive correlation with protein retention, but 0 g., 3.6 g. and above 5 g. per day of absorbed nitrogen showed different correlations, respectively.
2. The authors discussed the probability of flavoprotein being the greater part of labile protein and that flavoprotein works functionally as the reserve protein in the body which regulates the protein metabolism, in accordance with the change of protein intake.

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Lactase has been identified in many tissues and cells of vegetable or animal origin. Recently, a new purified commercial lactase from Saccharomyces lactis was prepared in Europe. Raw milk was treated with this lactase preparation at various enzyme concentrations and times.
The results obtained are summarized as follows :
1. Lactase activity was 35, 800 ONPG (o-nitrophenyl-β-D-galactopyranoside) unit/g. The released glucose was determined by Farb Test using glucose oxidase and peroxidase.
2. The hydrolysis of lactose during 0-60 min at 37°C, is presented in Fig. 4 for enzyme levels of O.5, 1.0 and 2.0 mg/ml milk. The lactase of 1.0 mg/ml catalyzed 100% lactose hydrolysis in 30 min.
3. As shown in Table 1 and 2, the lactase preparation showed no proteinase activity toward milk protein.
4. The milk treated with lactase became brown in color when heated over 95°C for 10 min.
5. No Appreciable change in flavor quality was recognized of the milk after treatment with lactase. The intensity in sweetness of the product was parallel with the lactase concentration.

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In an attempt to study diurnal fluctuations of the resting metabolism in relation to other physiological functions in man, the measurements of resting metabolism were made on five male subjects. The subjects were kept lying in bed in the metabolic ward. The resting metabolism was measured every one hour of the experimental day from 7 : 00 to 22 : 00 in supine position.
The results obtained were as follows ;
1. A slight increase of resting metabolism was observed up to 10 : 00. After 10 : 00 the increasing rate of resting metabolism become high. The increments of resting metabolism from basal metabolism were 10%, 17% and 20% at 16 : 00, 19 : 00 and 22 : 00, respectively.
As a possible explanation of the increase of resting metabolism in the fasting status, we suppose the high level of body temperature and lowered RQ in the day time before 19 : 00 and dehydration and the stress of the body by the abnormal fat metabolism after 19 : 00.
2. The coefficients between the resting metabolism and other physiological and metabolic parameters are follows :
FFA in plasma 0.98, keton bodies in blood 0.97, blood sugar-0.95, RQ -0.90, systolic blood pressure 0.79, body temperature 0.79, specific gravity of whole blood 0.99, heart rate 0.74.
The factor analysis indicates that both fat metabolism and water metabolism are the influencing factors for the resting metabolism, but these two factors are independent each other.

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In order to investigate the new aspects of processing properties of banana, the changes of the contents of sugars, starch and pectic substances, of acidity in banana harvested from the three different places during ripening was observed. That were samled every other day.
In respect of the determination of pectic substances, at first, the pulp and peel of banana were boiled in 70% ethylalcohol so as to remove sugars, then dried. Thus, by the fractional extraction the obtained dried materials were successively fractionated into three parts which were soluble in water at 30°C (W-S), 0.4% sodium hexametaphosphate at 30°C (P-S), and 0.05 N hydrochloric acid at 85°C (H-S). The pectic contents (Ca-pectate) of the fraction were quantitatively determined.
As the results, while the sugar was increased, the starch was decreased. Especially they were increased or decreased markedly after seven days. The total amount of suger in Philippine banana was comparatively large quantity. The acidity and pH showed small peak on the five or seven days. The total amount of pectin was gradually decreased, especially the decrease was significant in the latter half of ripening. The total pectin contents of banana pulp on the nine days of ripening, expressed as Ca-pectate on the fresh basis 0.55 % in Ecuadore banana, 0.66% in Philippine banana and 0.68% in Taiwan banana.
As for the ratio of the extracted fractions, P-S and H-S fractions decreased through ripening, while W-S fractions increased.
This is shown that the banana pulp was gradually softend.
The pectin amount in the banana peel was comparatively small and the changes through ripening were not markedly.

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The differences of the electrophoretic patterns, electric conductivities and proteolytic activities between individual acid-coagulable and acid-noncoagulable human skim milk samples were investigated to find factors related to the acid coagulability of human milk. From the observation of electrophoretic pattern of human skim milk, it appeared that acid-noncoagulable milk was poorer in casein content than acid coagulable milk. In the case of acid-noncoagulable milk, the concentration of salt ion determined by electric conductivity and the proteolytic activity were generally higher than those of acidcoagulable milk, and the 10% TCA soluble material content spectrophotometrically determined by treatment with Folin-Ciocalteu's reagent was also seemed to be higher. The coagulation by acid of human milk was inhibited by adding 21 mM NaCl, but was not affected by adding 3.5 or 7% lactose. These results suggest that the acid coagulability of human milk is related closely to the complicated factors which comprise mainly casein content, nonprotein nitrogen content or ionic concentration of the human milk.

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The oxalic acid content in about fifty kinds of common vegetables used in Japanese diets were determined by the Indol colorimetry due to Bergerman and Elliot.
It was found that vegetables with the oxalic acid concentration of more than 1% were goosefoot, New-zealand spinach and green tea, and vegetables containing 0.5 to 1% of oxalic acid were spinach, ginger root, leaf-beet, bamboo shoot, phellopterus littoralis, zingiber mioga and giant knotweed.
But other vegetable foods contained small or negligible amounts of oxalic acid.
Small amount of oxalic acid was contained in Japanese honewort on the market in February, but honewort which was picked up the garden in August, contained about 0.135% of the total oxalic acid.
The tuberous root of devil's tongue and bamboo shoot contained high concentration of oxalic acid. Devjl's tongue jelly has negligible and boiling bomboo shoot has 0.165% of oxalic acid.
The amount of oxalic acid in fungus were small and that of root crops were about 0.1%.

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The oxalic acid content of green tea was measured according to the Indole colorimetry by Bergerman and Elliot. Superior green tea, dust tea, and sprout tea contained more than 1.2% of the oxalic acid, and ground tea, stalk tea and green tea contained about 1% of the oxalic acid. However, the acid content of coarse tea and heated tea was small amount. The oxalic acid content in individual infusion was also measured after treatment as follow. When 3 grams of tea leaves was infused in 180 ml of 100°C distilled water, oxalic acid in dust tea infusion was the biggest amount, 17.0 mg%, and that in superior green tea was 4.7 mg%. When tea leaves were infused twice, 76% of the total the oxalic acid was found out in each infusion. Therefore, in the effect of temperature for infusion, the amount of the oxalic acid which was infused at 80°C, was about 81% of that at 100°C.

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