An investigation into the incidence and significance of hyperglycemia in certain pathological and physiological conditions

Abstract

(i ) Certain of the advanced cases of cancer and particularly those with a superadded infection showed a hyperglycemis and a delayed blood sugar fall of the mild diabetic type following the ingestion of 50 gms. of glucose. In certain cases also, there appeared to be a raised renal threshold for sugar. (ii) In advanced tuberculosis the fasting blood sugar is raised, end the sugar tolerance tests show a response similar to that shown by a mild case of diabetes. The renal threshold for sugar is also raised. (iii) The fasting blood sugar tends to rise with advancing age. (iv) The fasting blood sugar level in pregnancy is not raised beyond the normal limits. With labour the percentage blood sugar gradually rises to varying levels up to the end of the second stage . During the early days of the puerperium a hyperglycemia exists. The mechanism controlling this hyperglycemia is not known. It is not due to an excessive secretion of the pituitary gland. (v) This hyperglycemia of the puerperium is offered as an explanatory hypothesis of the rapid development of tuberculosis and of the tendency for innocent tumours to become malignant following labour. Also of the lowered resistance to general infections and especially streptococcal infections found during the puerperium. (vi) It is also offered as bearing some relationship to the absence of symptoms following repeated injections of pituitrin in pregnant women and women in the puerperium

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