The Influence of Diet Upon the Regeneration of Serum Protein

Abstract

In the evaluation of dietary proteins for their influence upon the regeneration of serum protein, it should be taken into consideration that the protein which is ingested must serve in two ways, namely, (a) in meeting the minimal requirement for nitrogen equilibrium of the entire organism and (b) in the formation of new serum protein. Inasmuch as proteins differ with respect to the amounts required for (a), it is obvious that preliminary determinations of the quantities needed for this purpose should be conducted before tests for function (b) are made. If (a) is known, the evaluation with respect to (b) may be carried out by feeding the same absolute amounts of the test proteins as increments above the quantities required for (a). Theoretically the relative potencies of the various proteins for the regeneration of serum protein should then be evidenced solely by the effects obtained when the test increment quantities are fed. Thus, the potency ratio in this study has been expressed as the ratio of the amount of serum protein per week removed by the bleedings above that regenerated by the animal when eating the basal protein-free diet, to the dietary protein increment, i.e., the amount above that required for nitrogen equilibrium.

Blood Plasma Protein Regeneration as Influenced by Fasting, Infection, and Diet Factors

“…If the basal diet is inadequate no certain baseline can be established. This opinion relative to reserve stores differs from that held by others (8).…”

“…Interesting experiments have been reported by Melnick and Cowgill (8,9) which are obviously related to the problems involved in the experiments tabulated in this paper. A detailed discussion of the differences between their work and ours would not seem appropriate in this place.…”

“…About 95 per cent of the nitrogen in this latter diet is present in the hver extract vitamin supplement. The protein-free diet was given exactly as described by its originators (8). Except in this latter, the salt mixture used in all diets was that of McCollum and Simmonds (6) without the iron.…”

The Nutritive Value of Human Plasma for the Rat

“…Similar data by different technics have been obtained by Weech (2) and by Melnick, Cowgill, and Burack (3), although the latter group concluded that the differences between serum, casein, and lactalbumin were not significant. It thus appears that plasma proteins may be considered to be of high biological value as measured by these technics.…”

Serum Albumin Regeneration as Effected by Intravenously and Orally Administered Protein Hydrolysates 1

“…As a result of the work of others (7, 11 to 16), it is recognized that ingested proteins differ widely in their ability to regenerate plasma albumin. Our work has been entirely with protein hydroly- When the assay values for the same hydrolysate given by mouth and by vein are compared, we can again elicit no statistically significant difference.…”