URINARY EXCRETION OF BETA-HYDROXYBUTYRATE AND ACETOACETATE DURING EXPERIMENTAL KETOSIS

¹ Human Environmental Research Unit, Department of Physiology and Biophysics, University of Illinois, Urbana, Illinois 61801, U.S.A.

Acetoacetate and beta-hydroxybutyrate in blood and urine have been studied in experimental ketosis produced in healthy young men and women by: (a) exercise in the post-absorptive state, (b) starvation and exercise, or (c) a high-fat, low-carbohydrate diet. With an increasing severity of ketosis, the plot of rate of excretion of acetoacetate against its concentration in the blood was a straight line, whereas the plot of the rate of excretion of beta-hydroxybutyrate against its concentration in the blood was exponential. The two ketone bodies had a constant ratio in the plasma, but, as ketosis progressed, beta-hydroxybutyrate became the preponderant molecule in the urine. The renal clearances of both acetoacetate and beta-hydroxybutyrate were much lower than that for creatinine.

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The authors wish to thank the subjects: E. Bernauer, D. H. K. Lee, J. Greenleaf, A. Pessa, J. Weiss, F. Landry, D. Wakat, J. Hancock, J. Hughes and M. Greenaway; and the graduate assistants: D. Zaharko, P. Hanson, P. Molé, R. Schilke, W. Epperson, J. Kohler, B. Nobel and V. Heemstra. We are especially indebted to Mrs. Frances Robbins for her skilled technical assistance at all times, to Mr. E. Thomas for his estimations of creatinine, and to Miss Sharon Vernon for editorial assistance.

This work was supported in part by contract DA-49-193-MD-2222 between the University of Illinois and the U.S. Department of the Army. An abstract was presented to the 1966 meeting of the American Society for Clinical Investigation [Galvin et at., 1966].