Abstract
Intestinal mucosal disaccharidase activity was measured in a group of patients with chronic pancreatitis and in a control group. A significant increase in activities of sucrase and maltase was found in patients with chronic pancreatitis. Since these patients also had mild carbohydrate intolerance, patients with diabetes mellitus were also studied to rule out the possibility that diabetes rather than the pancreatic disease accounted for our results; the diabetic patients had normal disaccharidase activity. Since nearly all of our patients had pancreatic insufficiency, we suggest that a decrease in intraluminal concentration of pancreatic enzymes may lead to a lessened rate of sucrase and maltase degradation in patients with chronic pancreatitis, allowing these enzymes to accumulate in the brush border membrane.
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This work was supported in part by Grant AM 13927 from the National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, Maryland, and by Veterans Administration Research Funds.
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Arvanitakis, C., Olsen, W.A. Intestinal mucosal disaccharidases in chronic pancreatitis. Digest Dis Sci 19, 417–421 (1974). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF01255605
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF01255605