Hemolysis and alimentary lipemia; effects of incubation, heparin, and protamine.

ITTLE ATTENTION has been paid to the observation of Longimui and Johnsontm that an alimentary lipemia may be responsible for increased fragility of erythrocytes. The possibility that the hemolysis may also occur in vivo is suggested by Loewy, et al.,2 who demonstrated that the output of bile pigment increased in dogs receiving high fat diets. More recently, Creditor3 has observed that hemolysis due to shaking whole blood imucreased after intravenous injection of two different fat emulsions. Our interest in this phenomenon aroused when it was observed that after shaking whole blood in a mechanical shaker to facilitate the solution of high molecular weight dextrans, the blood plasma of normal human subjects usually contained some free hemoglobin whereas the plasma of patiemits with multiple sclerosis contained none. Further investigation indicated that the degree of hemolysis in the blood of both patients and normal subjects paralleled the degree of the lipemia. The blood specimens were drawn three hours aft-er having given the subject a breakfast containing 15 Gm. of fat. The patients, most of whom were maintained on a low fat diet, seldom had visible lipemia, whereas the normal subjects had varying degrees of visible lipemia. Subsequent experiments in (logs were done and these are now reported.