THE CARBOHYDRATE METABOLISM OF THE HEART

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Abstract
It is found that hearts worked in the heart-lung preparation for periods up to 6 hrs. contain the same quantities of glycogen as are found in normal, unworked hearts. The mean value for a series of worked hearts does not vary significantly from the mean of normal hearts. It is improbable that work in the isolated heart-lung causes an appreciable lowering of heart glycogen. It is found that the free reducing substance in the heart muscle diminishes coincidently with the reducing substance in the blood supplying the heart of the heart-lung preparation. The free reducing substance in the heart may diminish to such a figure that it is probably nearly a zero value as far as glucose is concerned, while the glycogen content remains at a value similar to values obtained in unworked hearts. Comparison of the 0 consumption with the glucose utilization of the heart-lung preparation shows that in no instance does the heart-lung preparation, under the conditions of the authors'' experiments, use heart glycogen or blood glucose for more than 60% of its metabolism, and in some instances these carbohydrates form less than 25% of the fuel. There is a rough agreement between carbohydrate burning as observed by the authors, and as others have calculated it from the respiratory quotient. All the carbohydrate in the system at the beginning of an experiment would not account for the total metabolism of the heart-lung over a period of 5 hrs.

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