[Half-life of galactose in the blood plasma of lambs and sheep and the effect on various blood components after an i.v. galactose solution infusion].

Three lambs, aged between four and five weeks, and four sheep, aged one year, received infusions of galactose solutions (0.5 g galactose/kg body weight). The average half-life values were 28.7 minutes in the lambs and 59 minutes in the sheep. Average galactose concentrations, five minutes from mid-infusion, were 61 +/- 1.2 mg/100 ml of blood plasma in the lambs and 71 +/- 3.3 mg/100 ml in the sheep. The infusions caused statistically significant rises of glucose in the blood plasma of both lambs and sheep and an additional rise of fructose in the blood plasma of the sheep. In sheep galactose infusion resulted in rise of insulin in the blood plasma, within ten minutes from mid-infusion, the latter rise being statistically significant, from 53 +/- 26 microE/ml to 96 +/- 23.3 microE/ml. The lambs exhibited, as a result of the infusions, statistically significant rises of blood-borne lactate from 6.7 +/- 2.3 mg/100 ml to 16.7 +/- 1.2 mg/100 ml on average, within five minutes from mid-infusion.