THE INFLUENCE OF THE ADRENAL CORTEX AND COLD STRESS ON FASTING KETOSIS IN THE RAT

Abstract

KETOSIS has been considered to be a part of the “Alarm Reaction” and as such conceivably mediated by or dependent upon adrenal cortical activity (Selye, 1950; Sargent and Consolazio, 1951), although there are few concrete data on which to base such a conclusion. Admittedly ketosis may occur following a variety of stressful stimuli such as muscular effort (Gemmill, 1934; Errebo-Knudsen, 1946; Drury et al., 1941a; Neufeld and Ross, 1943; Taylor et al., 1945), reduced atmospheric pressure (Evans, 1936), surgical trauma (Roscher, 1933; Sachar et al., 1950; Elman and Weichselbaum, 1951), x-irradiation (Kikuchi, 1931), artificial fever (Somogyi and Kirstein, 1940) and even in response to stressful life situations (Hinkle et al., 1950), but little is known concerning the metabolic mechanisms involved in this type of ketosis and even less about possible hormonal influences. The adrenal cortex is activated under these same circumstances,