ERYTHROCYTE DAMAGE BY LIPEMIC SERUM IN NORMAL MAN AND IN PERNICIOUS ANEMIA

Abstract

Describing the absorption of the products of fat digestion into the lymphatic system instead of into the intestinal blood capillaries, A. P. Mathews¹ wondered "why the fat should thus be passed into the blood by going... through the thoracic duct" and ventured the prediction that "there is very little doubt that some good reason exists for this peculiar arrangement." The following experiments conducted by us and other collaborators at the University of Chicago have partially provided the "good reason." Lacteal lymph collected close to the small intestine in dogs after a fatty meal is strongly hemolytic.² Some free fatty acids and soaps, which apparently escape resynthesis into neutral fat during the absorption of the digestion products of fat, are demonstrable in chyle in quantities sufficient to account for this hemolysis.³ By the time the chyle reaches the subclavian vein these hemolytic agents are decreased in concentration, probably