Scurvy carbohydrate metabolism

It is interesting therefore to review what evidence there is of deranged carbohydrate metabolism under conditions of AA and DHA depletion. The reviewer has not been able to find any reference to deranged carbohydrate in human scurvy. Crandon s glucose tolerance was unaffected by scurvy (Crandon et al., 1940). There is some indecisive literature on the alleged effect of diets low in ascorbic acid on the human glucose tolerance test, but Owens et al. (1941) were unable to show that clinical diabetes was affected in any way by the state of ascorbic acid nutrition. 

Tyrosyluria (the excretion of 4-hydroxyphenylpyruvate, 4-hydroxyphenyl-lactate and 4-hydroxyphenylacetate with hypertyrosinaemia) occurs in some normal newborn babies, particularly premature babies, scurvy (ascorbate or vitamin C deficiency), tyrosinosis (Medes, 1932), hepatic cytosol tyrosine transaminase deficiency (oculo-cutaneous tyrosinaemia) (Kennaway and Buist, 1971), in hereditary tyrosinaemia ( inborn hepatorenal dysfunction with tryosyluria ) (LaDu and Gjessing, 1978) and as a secondary phenomenon to a number of liver diseases, including several inherited metabolic diseases unassociated directly with tyrosine metabolism (for example, propionic acidaemia) or involving disorders of carbohydrate metabolism (for example, galactosaemia and fructosaemia). 

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