AVAILABLE evidence indicates that utilization of carbohydrate may be impaired L in patients with manic-depressive, involutional, and schizophrenic psychoses.1 Information on the mobilization of glucose in such patients is incomplete. The rise in blood sugar following intramuscular injection of epinephrine is usually normal, or greater than normal, even in malnourished patients with severe neuroses or with manic-depressive or schizophrenic psychoses.2 However, this observation elucidates only a portion of the entire process of glucose mobilization. The studies of Mirsky and associates3 on changes in glucose in the blood and urine after injection of phlorhizin in man suggested that the use of that substance in patients with mental disease might afford information useful in the interpretation of the metabolic disorder commonly encountered in certain psychoses.
MATERIAL AND METHODS
Twelve patients, of ages ranging from 19 to 64, were studied; 8 were women. The diagnoses varied (Table); one patient (Gr)