More Blood, Less Fat

Dextran, says the Merck Index of Chemicals and Drugs, is "a term applied to carbohydrate slimes originating from sugar syrups, found in crystallizing tanks of sugar refineries." Thus described, dextran hardly sounds like anything for a doctor to prescribe. For years, however, it has been used as a readily available substitute for blood plasma to boost the volume of fluid in patients who are going into shock from loss of blood. Now a University of Maryland surgeon has reported that, quite by chance, he discovered a remarkable new use for the drug extracted from a slime: to reduce abnormally high cholesterol levels in the blood.

The happy accident occurred, said Dr. C. Thomas Flotte (pronounced Float), while he was treating a patient with a clot in one of the renal veins. Dr. Flotte took a presurgery blood sample, and the laboratory reported a cholesterol level of about 400 mg., or double the normal. During the operation, the patient received a pint of dextran, both to maintain his blood volume and to reduce clotting. Then he got a pint a day for two days. Dr. Flotte sent a fresh blood sample to the lab and got back a cholesterol reading of 150 mg.

Impossible, he told the lab man. But the technician successfully defended both readings, and the startled surgeon decided to run a further check on dextran's anti-cholesterol activity. It worked so well in rabbits that for 21 years he has been giving the drug by intravenous injection to surgery patients who happen to have cholesterol levels in the abnormal range of 300 mg. to 600 mg. After an infusion of a pint a day for three days, the level of cholesterol and other fats in their blood drops back to normal, and can be kept there with infusions of a pint every month. Although Dr. Flotte has no idea how dextran works, he hopes it may also help to dissolve fatty plaques already formed in the arteries.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.