Effect of pure oxygen at reduced pressures on metabolic changes in mice

¹ Department of Biology, Bryn Mawr College, Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania

The gravimetric "equivalence" between protein catabolized and carbohydrate synthesized in response to cortisone was determined in mice exposed for periods of 3 weeks to air at simulated 14,000-ft or 20,000-ft altitude or to pure oxygen at simulated 30,000-ft or 34,000-ft altitude. For control mice and those exposed to pure oxygen at 30,000 ft and 34,000 ft the equivalence was, respectively, 92%, 90%, and 98%. Animals on air at 14,000 ft and at 20,000 ft had, respectively, 46% and 37% equivalence. In all mice, protein catabolism was the same, statistically, but carbohydrate synthesis varied. Mice exposed to air at 14,000 ft or 20,000 ft show 35% and 46% survival after a dose of endotoxin survived by 84% of control animals and 86% of those kept for 3 weeks on pure oxygen at simulated 34,000 ft. Other effects of low barometric pressure are described.