Effects of Diminished Food Intake on the Metabolic Response

Effects of Diminished Food Intake on the Metabolic Response 

As described above, it is now fairly certain that the source of most of the additional nitrogen lost in the urine in the flow phase of the metabolic response to injury is labile body protein, and not liver or gut 

However, it must be recorded that some workers feel that in the human subject the period of anorexia which usually follows injury is responsible for the negative-nitrogen balance of the postinjury period (Al, Dll, D12). There are a number of unsatisfactory aspects about much of this work. We have already made mention of the considerable volume of work with well-nourished animals on a constant pre- and postinjury food intake, which show a definite and marked loss of nitrogen in the urine. 

Not only does this pattern indicate that we are dealing with other than the consequences of diminished food intake, but there is also an associated and parallel rise and fall in oxygen consumption and heat loss which is characteristic of this metabolic response to injury and is quantitatively similar to the increased protein catabolism (Cl). 

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