Course of diabetes and development of cataracts after injecting dehydroascorbic acid and related substances.

MYDROASCORBIC (I, 2)) dehydroisoascorbic (2)) and dehydroglucoa scorbic (3) acids will produce a hyperglycemia in rats that persists for weeks. This has been called diabetes. Since dehydroascorbic acid occurs normally in man (4), it is of interest to consider the course of this disease and to further establish the diagnosis of diabetes. Cataracts develop as a complication of human diabetes (5) and appear to be more common in those individuals who are poorly regulated. Cataracts occur in rats with experimental diabetes following pancreatectomy (6), or alloxan injection (7, 8). Those animals with the most severe diabetes develop cataracts the earliest (8). Therefore, an attempt is made to correlate hyperglycemia with the time at which cataracts occur following the injection of dehydroascorbic acid and related substances.