The Role of the Endocrine Glands

The pituitary, adrenal, and other endocrine glands are generally assumed to play a critical, or even indispensable role in the development of ketosis. However, a previous study demonstrated that in the rat neither the hypophysis nor the adrenal Awas essential for ketosis during a prolonged fast (1), although they did influence the magnitude of the ketonemia and recovery therefrom as the fast was prolonged. In the present study we investigated the ability of the endocrine-deficient rat to develop ketosis acutely in response to insulin-induced hypoglycemia. In these studies "ketosis" is considered as any state "in which the liver produces acetoacetic and /3-hydroxybutyric acids more rapidly than they can be burned by the tissues" (2). Quantitatively it may vary from the minimal but physiologically important elevations in fasting to the profound pathological ketosis of diabetic acidosis. These studies were concerned with physiological rather than pathological ketosis, although in many respects the two differ only in degree. The sequence of events, hypoglycemia followed by ketosis, simulates the metabolic pattern of prolonged fasting telescoped into a period of a few hours. The same pattern occurs in an exag-