Effects of Chronic Acidosis on Connective Tissue

Abstract

HEMORRHAGIC DIATHESES, poor wound healing, bone alterations, certain characteristic skin changes, and other poorly understood tissue responses occur in chronic acidotic states.¹Skin changes were studied in 1958 by Olmstead and Lunseth²who observed that the skin of chronically acidotic patients was dry, scaly, and atrophic with marked loss of hair. Histologically, they found elastosis (an increase of fibers which take elastic tissue stains) throughout both the upper and lower dermis and postulated that the fibers were elastic tissue formed from degradation products of the collagen. The purpose of this study was to determine the identity of these fibers in chronic acidosis and to correlate the histological findings of the elastosis with the urinary hydroxyproline levels, since urinary hydroxyproline excretion has been demonstrated to be an index of collagen turnover.^3-6Results of this study suggest that these fibers are, in reality, true elastic tissue and that collagen