BLOOD PYRUVIC ACID IN HEART DISEASE

Abstract

Meakins and Long¹ were the first to study intermediates of tissue carbohydrate metabolism in heart disease. In 1927 they showed a marked and proportional increase in blood lactic acid in patients with heart failure. The validity of these results was subsequently both confirmed² and denied.³ The importance of lactic acid as the center of carbohydrate metabolism has since been overshadowed by that of pyruvic acid, and recently even more interest has attached itself to pyruvic acid because of Peters'⁴ discovery that the presence of vitamin B₁ is necessary for its oxidation. In 1937 Taylor, Weiss and Wilkins⁵ attempted estimations of blood pyruvic acid on persons with all types of disease by measuring the blood bisulfite-binding substances and showed a rise of these in subjects with failing hearts. This method of pyruvate estimation has since been shown, however, to be nonspecific and inaccurate.⁶ This present work makes use