The Effect of Atropine Upon the Absorption of Vitamin A

Records of the small intestinal motor activity in patients with sprue show that the tone is greatly reduced, that the large (L) waves are absent for long periods of time, and that the small (S) waves tend to be of diminished amplitude (1). A very similar record is obtained from the gut of a normal person who has been given atropine (2), a similarity which is apparent in Figure 1. Evidence has lately been presented that the absorption defect in sprue-like states is in part dependent upon the abnormal intestinal motor activity which characterizes these disorders (3). If this concept is true, the changes in intestinal motility which follow atropinization might also affect the absorption rate of foodstuffs from the bowel. In order to test this hypothesis, vitamin A absorption tests were carried out in experi-mental subjects before and after atropinization. METHODS Twenty-three vitamin A absorption tests were done in 6 subjects, of whom 3 were normal volunteers and 3, hos-pital patients without active organic disease of the gastro-intestinal tract or liver. In 19 experiments, the test sub-stance, consisting of 5 cc. of Navitol 1 (250,000 I.U. of vitamin A), was injected directly into the small intestine.