Studies on the carbohydrate metabolism of sheep. VII. Intravenous glucose and acetate tolerance tests

Abstract

Intravenous glucose and acetate tolerance tests have been carried out on shoop fed on a variety of diets. The disappearance of injected glucose and acetate appears to follow an exponential function with respect to time. On all diets used, the rate of disappearance of acetate appeared slower then in non-ruminants. The rate of glucose disappearance was slow in sheep fed on roughage diets but rates as high as those normally observed in man were recorded on high intakes of a diet containing 50 per cent. of cracked maize. On varying dietary regimes, variations in the rate of disappearance were in the same direction and of a similar order of magnitude for both glucose and acetate. Rates were considerable decreased daring fasting. The data are discussed ill the light of other data on tissue utilization of glucose and acetate in ruminants and in relation to present knowledge of metabolic differences between ruminants and non-ruminants.