Glucose Tolerance and the Blood-sugar Curve In

Within recent years glucose tolerance has been used as a means of investigating disturbances of carbohydrate metabolism, especially when following disorders of the endocrine system. In such tests it has generally been accepted that a normal adult, of about 60 kgrm. weight, can ingest and metabolize 100 grm. of glucose without the appearance of glycosuria. The ability to deal with more than this amount is considered evidence of an increased carbohydrate tolerance, and the presence of glycosuria following the ingestion of less than 100 grm. points to a decreased tolerance. In the case of children it has been customary to consider that there is an increased carbohydrate tolerance if more than 2 grm. of glucose per kgrm. of body weight can be ingested without the appearance of glycosuria. This view of carbohydrate tolerance has not, however, met with universal acceptance. Samson Wright' says " It is difficult to understand the term 'increased sugar tolerance,' which is so frequently used, since nausea develops before the limits of ingestion are reached." He also states that a proportion of subjects develop very slight glycosuria with 300-500 grm. of glucose. Taylor and Hulton2 consider that in the majority of healthy adults there is no limit to the assimilation of glucose, but a survey of their findings shows that in 6 of their 25 cases glycosuria appeared with 200 grm. Gray3 in his paper on 'Blood Sugar Standards' points out that of 129 apparently normal persons 40% showed glycosuria with 100 grm. of glucose, and Goto and Kuno4 also noted glycosuria after the ingestion of a similar amount in 62% of their cases. Benedict and Osterberg5, who hold that there is no absolute tolerance for sugar in the normal individual, report glycosuria in two cases after 40 and 60 grm. of glucose respectively. In the present paper are recorded the results of the glucose tolerance test in 39 children varying in age between 12 years and 12 years. In 28 (Group I) of these 39 children there was no reason for suspecting any disturbance of carbohydrate metabolism, but the remaining 11 children (Group II) were suffering from diseases in which it is generally supposed that such a disturbance exists. The majority of the 28 children comprising Group I were suffering from chorea, but there were also 3 patients convalescent from rheumatic arthritis, 2 suffering from taeniasis, and onge case each of rheumatic pericarditis, convalescent pneumonia, chronic pneumonia, congenital syphilis, chloroma and