The Relation Between Ingested Fat and the Lipemia of Diabetes Mellitus

Since patients with diabetes mellitus are more dependent on fat as a source of energy than are normal subjects, it is tempting to try to explain the hyperlipoidemia that is so common in this disease on the basis of some theory that assumes a relationship between the amount of fat in the food and the percentage of lipoids in the blood. In the literature that has accumulated on this subject a tendency to assume this relationship is evident. In the Rockefeller monograph,¹for example, the authors state that lipemia "is largely associated with the fat intake and with other diabetic symptoms." Ervin²states that "the lipemia of a diabetic will disappear with the elimination of fat from the diet." Bang³believed that the lipemia was, in part, alimentary. Joslin⁴suggests a relation between the high protein, fat diets of former days and the high degrees of lipemia reported, and states