Sugars in the Blood and Urine of Children Following the Ingestion of Disaccharides

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Abstract
Forty-seven newborn babies and 47 older children were fed with the disaccharides lactose, sucrose or maltose. Subsequent urine collection showed a high sugar excretion rate. The source of urinary hexoses and disaccharides is undoubtedly the gut, because a sugar was not found in the urine unless a feed containing that sugar, either free or in combination, had recently been fed. Small amounts of the disaccharides, lactose and sucrose, escape hydrolysis in the gut, are absorbed unchanged and subsequently excreted in the urine. Although earlier work had suggested that premature babies excreted sugars to a greater degree than mature babies, this was not confirmed in the present series of observations. The degree of sugar excretion did not apparently depend on the maturity or age of the child or the dose of the sugar administered by mouth. The finding of sucrosuria in one-third of the children who were given sucrose by mouth makes it unlikely that the sucrosuria that has been described in association with mental deficiency is anything more than a coincidence. Sucrose and/or fructose were found in the blood of six children following a feed of sucrose, but these were not the same children who excreted this combination of sugars in the urine. Lactose was found in the blood of one child following a lactose feed, but galactose was not demonstrated on any occasion. This discrepancy between blood and urinary findings was almost certainly due to technical reasons. Maltose was not found in the blood or urine following feedings of this sugar. The reasons why this disaccharide should behave differently from lactose and sucrose have been discussed.