Studies on Ketosis in Dairy Cattle. XI. Lipids, Minerals and Ascorbic Acid in the Blood of Cows with Spontaneous Ketosis

Rather extensive fatty infiltration and degeneration of various organs of cows with ketosis have been observed in studies carried on in this laboratory (10).This suggested that disturbances in fat metabolism may be involved.It appeared advisable, therefore, to determine whether any consistent abnormalities existed in the various blood lipids of cows with ketosis, since little information of this nature was available.The adrenal cortex of ketotic cows always has shown extensive degeneration (11).Prior to these studies it was shown (9) that an extract of the adrenal cortex was effective in the treatment of ketosis.To obtain additional information on the possible role of the adrenals in the development of ketosis, an investigation of the level of ascorbic acid, sodium and potassium in the blood plasma also was included in this study.In addition, blood chlorides, phosphates and phosphatase activity were determined. EXPERIMENTAL ~ PROCEDUREAll of the cases reported herein were field cases diagnosed as ketosis by practicing veterinarians.One of the cows studied had had ketosis in previous years and was subjected to study before and during the development of the ketotic condition.In all cases blood glucose and acetone bodies were determined as an aid in diagnosis.Some of these cases were used simultaneously for other investigations which will be reported later.The methods used are as follows: Glucose, Somogyi's (13) modification of the Shaffer and Somogyi procedure used on cadmium sulphate filtrates; acetone bodies, Barnes and Wick (1); ascorbie acid, Mindlin and Butler (5) ; sodium, a modification of Snell and Snell (12) ; potassium, Harris (2); chlorides, Whitehorn (14); phosphates, Saarinen's (6) modification of the Kuttner, Cohen and Lichtenstein procedure.This same procedure also was used in determining phosphatase activity.The method used for blood lipids is a modification of one developed by one of the authors (7, 8).A modification of Bloor's method, developed by Katsura and associates (3, 4), was used for a comparison in developing the shorter method used in this study.In this study instead of separating the phospholipids by precipitation, they were calculated from the difference between the amount of total lipids and the other lipids that were extracted separately.This separation is based upon the heavy hydration of phospholipids in certain pH areas where phospholipids are not extractable from aqueous emulsion with ether and petroleum ether.