Ethanol Metabolism and Experimental Diabetes

The influence of diabetes in dogs, varying in intensity from a mild, acute insulin deficiency produced by antiinsulin guinea pig serum to a severe diabetes in chronic pancreatectomized dogs deprived of insulin for seven days, was investigated.

The experimental diabetes, regardless of its severity, did not depress the rate of ethanol metabolism in these experiments. In not one of the experiments did the diabetic dog have an ethanol disappearance rate lower than the range observed in the control experiments. In fact the rate tended to be higher than that of the control experiments but the difference was not statistically significant. These findings confirm and extend those of Kinard and Cox but do not agree with those of B. B. Clark et al.