The Beneficial Effect of Mucin and Chondroitin in Experimental Liver Damage

Kim and Ivy 1 have observed that mucin prevents ulcers and greatly reduces weight loss in biliary fistula dogs while alkali therapy also prevents peptic ulcer but does not moderate the impairment of nutrition. This, together with improvement in nutrition observed by those who have employed mucin in the therapy of human peptic ulcer, suggests that this substance, in addition to having a local action in the bowel, may play a rôle in metabolism. Of interest in this connection is the fact that many of the conditions in which chronic ulcer develops in the dog are associated with liver damage, biliary fistula, bile duct ligation, pancreatic duct ligation, Eck fistula, and cinchophen poisoning. It seemed worthwhile to study more specifically the effect of mucin on the nutritional state of animals with hepatic damage in which ulcer does not occur as frequently as in biliary fistula dogs.

A series of 9 dogs with ligation of the common bile duct were studied. Of these, 4 were kept as untreated controls and 5 were given 60 gm. of mucin once daily. In addition, 2 Eck fistula dogs that had lost weight post-operatively were given the same amount of mucin daily. All were kept on the stock diet of corn-meal made to a mash with bone soup and bread, and with a small amount of horse-meat added.

This series is too small to allow of definite deductions. However, in view of our previous experience with such animals, the results are so striking that it is felt a preliminary report is warranted. The control animals ran the usual course, losing 30, 33, 26, 35%, average 31%, of their weight in 30 days, while the mucin-fed dogs lost 11, 7, 7, 2, 10. or an average of 7.3%, in the same time. The increases in weight of the Eck fistula dogs fed mucin are given in Table I.