Effect of patterns of eating and antacids on faecal urobilinogen excretion.

It has been shown (Malhotra, 1968) that significantly higher amounts of faecal and urine urobilino-gen are eliminated on the non-masticatory South Indian style diet as compared with the masticatory North Indian regime. The present study was undertaken to separate the effect of the pattern of diet from the pattern of eating and also to study the effect of acid and antacids on these values. MATERIALS AND METHODS PATIENTS Twelve ambulatory, convalescent patients with complaints unrelated to the gastrointestinal tract and on no medication were included in the dietary experiments. All the studies were carried out in the metabolic ward of the Jagjivan Ram Hospital of the Western Railway. THE DIETARY REGIMENS Two different diets were used, the masticatory wheat diet and the non-masticatory rice diet, which have been described elsewhere (Malhotra, 1968). These were isocaloric with each other at 2,271 calories. In order to maintain uniformity in the composition of the diets, patients were served from a common pool of the respective diets. In the first set of experiments, which included six patients, the wheat diet was used first, followed by the rice diet; and in the second set, which had six patients, this sequence was changed, viz., the rice diet preceded the wheat diet. In each dietary regime, three different modes of ingestion were employed: (1) six days on the wheat or rice diet alone; (2) six days on the wheat or rice diet plus 100 ml. of 0.15 N HCl, three times daily after the principal meals; (3) six days on wheat or rice diet plus 100 ml. of 5 % sodium bicarbonate and 2 teaspoonfuls of an antacid Weyth), three times daily, after the principal meals. Lastly, a comparison was made between two different patterns of eating the rice diet, namely, by deliberate and thorough chewing versus 'meal scamping,' a pattern of eating which is habitual in South India and in which the patients bolt down handfuls of rice with minimal chewing. BIOCHEMICAL INVESTIGATIONS Methods of collecting stools and estimating faecal urobilinogen have been described in detail in another article in this Journal (Malhotra, 1968). We have observed in our pilot studies that with changes in dietary r6gimes, basal conditions in the levels of faecal and urine urobilinogen are not attained until two days after a particular dietary regimen, after which a high degree of repeatability of results is attained. We have, therefore, continued the different feeding …