A suggestion of the therapeutic value of glucose based on investigation of carbohydrate metabolism of the feebleminded

Summary

The metabolic mechanism of mental defectives is impaired to some extent. Their impairment has been shown by their peculiar handling of certain substances which are derived from both food and disintegration of bodily cells and are the source for the after-hydrolysis fraction of urinary reducing substances. The high carbohydrate diet, resulting in an increased quantity of glucose circulating within the metabolic channels, appears to compensate for the impairment mentioned above. Therefore, the customary high carbohydrate diet of institutions for feebleminded is to be regarded not as a matter of a chance or administrative economy, but as an automatically established way of meeting the metabolic peculiarity of the kind of patients cared for. Inflammation is always accompanied by increased disintegration of body cells which raises the demand for metabolic efficiency. Therefore, the administration of glucose in cases with retarded healing might be of therapeutic value because it induces an adequate handling of the products of cell disintegration. This conception has been checked up on two clinical cases with promising results.