Search

Pronghorn ( ilocapra americana are probably the second fastest land mammal with a top speed of about 100 km/hr. Pronghorn are endurance runners as well as they have been observed running at an average speed of 65 km/hr for over 10 min. To determine if the pronghorn has become physiologically adapted for running a number of parameters which are thought to influence the delivery of 0 2 uscle and the removal of respiratory and metabolic acids both in the pronghorn and in its unspecialized control, the domestic goat, were measured. Average values obtained are as follows: Pronghorn Goat Heart wt/body wt 0.948 0.495 g/100 g Hemoglobin 18.8 11.5 g/100 ml Blood volume 9.29 6.59% body wt Hematocrit 0.44 0.31 Airway resistance 1.34 2.85 cm H 2 O/L/sec Blood buffering 0.43 0.55 pH drop It is concluded that the pronghorn is physiologically adapted for running compared to goats of equal size.

Fingernail samples from 32 patients with diabetes mellitus and from 26 non-diabetics were analyzed in order to determine the protein glycosylation rate in nail. Nail glycosylation was assayed by the thiobarbituric acid reaction. Blood was taken from both diabetics and non-diabetics at the same time for measurement of hemoglobin glycosylation. In non-diabetics, the protein glycosylation in nail and glycosylated hemoglobin were found to be 8.35 +/- 2.7 nmol fructosamine/mg nail and 2.24 +/- 0.45 mumol fructosamine/g hemoglobin, respectively. In diabetics, however, there was an extremely high glycosylation in both nail protein and hemoglobin: 16.0 +/- 7.35 nmol fructosamine/mg nail and 5.17 +/- 1.17 mumol fructosamine/g hemoglobin (p less than 0.001 for both). A significant correlation was found between nail glycosylation and glycosylated hemoglobin in diabetics (r = 0.923, p less than 0.001). Also, there was a correlation between diabetic fasting blood glucose and protein glycosylation in nail (r = 0.947, p less than 0.001). Our findings show that it might be useful in the investigation of microvascular complications of diabetes mellitus to evaluate the possibility of nail glycosylation providing a stable long-term measure of tissue glycosylation.