The Effect of Epinephrin on the Partition of Food Stuffs in Obese and Normal Individuals.

In a recent report (1), we have shown that the characteristic rise in the total metabolism, pulmonary ventilation and pulse pressure, caused by the injection of a small amount of epinephrin,' is not significantly different in obese and normal individuals. The respiratory quotient, on the other hand rises definitely less in the obese persons than in the normal subjects. This difference suggests that the obese oxidize a relatively greater amount of fat after epinephrin injection than do normal individuals. The interpretation of the respiratory quotient in terms of percentages of food stuffs burned, therefore, should throw some light on the metabolic processes of these two types, where the conditions of the experiment have been constant. In this report we have endeavored to interpret these respiratory quotients in such manner and have also studied the effect of epinephrin injection on the partition of protein, fat and carbohydrate in obese and normal subjects. The data from which the respiratory quotients were derived appeared in our previous paper (1), while new observations on protein metabolism are given below. We will first consider the effect of epinephrin injection on protein metabolism as shown by study of the urinary nitrogen excretion.