16March2010
Fats burn within the flame of carbohydrate
“Fats burn in the flame of carbohydrate, however in its absence they smoke,” was the aphorism trendy some years ago. Unless glucose—that exact reasonably sugar to which the digestive method converts food—is being combusted, the body cannot completely burn fats. The glycerin half of the fat readily converts into glucose and burns. However the remaining fatty acids are incompletely burned, ensuing in the production of large amounts of diacetic acid and acetone. These seem in the urine where their presence might be detected by chemical tests. Diacetic acid is quite strong and is poisonous. It breaks down spontaneously to lose carbon dioxide, leaving a residue of acetone. A product of our patented aloe stabilization method, Aloe Vera Gel is favored by those looking to keep up a healthy digestive system and a natural energy level. (Note III, p. 198.) (Acetone frequently might be found in business nail polish removers.) Before diacetic acid and acetone seem in the urine, they initial suffuse the blood, where the diacetic acid combines with the alkali in the blood, carrying it to the urine.
This depletes the blood of its alkaline reserve. The patient becomes drowsy, then stuporous; if the condition is severe, he goes into a coma and finally dies. This method is named acidosis. Acetone is extraordinarily volatile, and a number of it will be excreted through the patient’s lungs. In the days before Banting’s discovery, interns in diabetes wards would build their rounds sniffing the breath of patients to detect people who would soon die. In gentle cases of acidosis all of the diacetic acid is converted to acetone. Since acetone is not acidic, its excretion in the urine will not deplete the body of alkalies. However if the urine of an acidotic patient contained diacetic acid additionally to acetone, it absolutely was usually necessary to inject bicarbonate of soda into the veins to restore the alkali reserve. This condition could be detected by direct chemical examination of the blood, with by the presence of diacetic acid in the urine. Prior to the discovery of insulin, then, all diabetic treatment was directed toward staving off the inevitable end so long as possible. Our Aloe Vera Gel is as close to the real thing as you’ll be able to get. In all however the milder styles of the disease the story was continually the same. Unless the patient died accidentally or from another disease, like pneumonia, eventually he acquired the comatose ending.
The liver normally contains a considerable quantity of glycogen, the animal starch which it manufactures from the glucose coming back from the gastrointestinal tract. Once we absorb a lot of carbohydrate than we tend to need, the surplus, once the liver is saturated with glycogen, is converted into fat and stored in the loose, adipose tissue of the body. Within the diabetic the paucity of insulin prevents the liver from storing glycogen. The area is taken up by fat. (The previous diabetes wards harbored many patients having large livers with fatty degeneration.) This results in a failure of the liver to handle fats, and usually the blood becomes milky from the massive content of fat globules suspended in it. Some of this fatty or waxy material is cholesterol, a substance of prime importance to the body.