The Blood Lipoids in Diabetes

With an excess of fat diabetes begins and from an excess of fat diabetics die. In 45 per cent. of our diabetic cases an increase of body fat preceded the onset of the disease, and in 60 per cent, of the fatal cases abnormalities of fat metabolism resulting in acidosis caused death. Such facts show the need for an intensive investigation of fat metabolism in diabetes. The importance of the problem is further manifest when it is realized that there are approximately 1,000,000 individuals in the United States who either have or will have diabetes before they die. As a preliminary to the investigation of fat metabolism a knowledge of the fat in the blood is essential. Save for Bloor's series of thirty-eight accurately analyzed diabetic bloods no extensive data of this sort exist. For this reason, and to serve as a basis for further work, during the last eight