Abstract
Blood Sugar Levels in the Bengal Famine DE. M. L. CHAKRABARTY, at the Campbell Medical School, Calcutta, has measured the blood sugar in a series of starvation cases admitted to hospital during the recent famine. In a communication to Nature, he states that some surprisingly low figures were found; the lowest recorded was 20 mgm. per 100 c.c., and this case recovered under treatment. In a normal individual, definite symptoms of hypoglycæmia occur when the blood sugar falls below about 70 mgm. per 100 c.c.; but these starvation cases, although weak and lethargic, with profound depression of all bodily activities, never exhibited any of the typical nervous symptoms of hypoglycæmia in spite of their extremely low blood sugars. The absence of hypoglycæmic symptoms was probably due to the slow and insidious onset of the hypoglycæmia; in such cases of 'chronic' hypoglycæmia it seems that the nervous system has time to adapt itself to the low sugar level. Biochemical investigation of these cases is proceeding and the main interest so far is the demonstration that life can continue, albeit at a low ebb, with a blood sugar of only 20 mgm. per 100 c.c.
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Research Items. Nature 154, 519–520 (1944). https://doi.org/10.1038/154519a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/154519a0