The Negative Effect of Alcohol on Lowering Ketonuria

These data on fasting ketonuria in man as well as the earlier described tests on the exogenous and endogenous ketonuria of rats indicate that marked changes in ketonuria can occur after the administration of carbohydrate in quantities too small to decrease significantly the fat catabolism. It is difficult to harmonize such results with the antiketogenesis theory. 

One suggestion to explain this discrepancy is that two pathways of fat catabolism are available and that ketone body formation is the resultant of only one type of breakdown. This latter type, also called the indirect fat utilization, occurs in the liver the catabolism of fat in the muscle, called the -direct method, either involves no ketogenesis or the ketone bodies are immediately utilized and no accumulation occurs. 

There is adequate proof that ketone bodies originate in the liver and that the muscles can utilize the ketone bodies in 

There is no indisputable proof that fat can be directly oxidized in the muscles. GemmilP was unable to demonstrate any decrease in the fat present in the working muscle of the normal or phlorizinized rat. He believed that when fat is used by muscle, it is used indirectly. 

Obviously, more direct experimental work is required on this difficult problem before we can arrive at a satisfactory conclusion on whether fat is directly metabolized in the muscle without ketone body formation. 

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