What is Ketoacidosis?

Answer 1

Only add:
Diabetic ketoacidosis (DKA) is one consequence of untreated diabetes mellitus (chronic high blood sugar, or hyperglycemia), and is linked to an impaired glucose cycle.

Diabetic Ketoacidosis is a complication of diabetes in which the animal becomes very ill. Symptoms of this condition, in addition to the symptoms observed with diabetes mellitus, include: dehydration, weakness, vomiting, rapid respiratory rate, and sometimes the breath takes on an odor of nail polish remover. This is an emergency and often requires many days of hospitalization to treat. This condition often requires another inciting cause in addition to diabetes. Examples of conditions that can cause diabetic ketoacidosis in a diabetic animal include: stress, infection, inflammation, estrus (heat), steroids, congestive heart failure and kidney failure.

The condition is definitely treatable, and need not shorten the animal's life span or life quality. In type-2 cats, prompt effective treatment can even lead to diabetic remission, in which the cat no longer needs injected insulin. Untreated, the condition leads to blindness in dogs, increasingly weak legs in cats, and eventually malnutrition, ketoacidosis and/or dehydration, and death.

I just did a quick check on ketoacidosis and they had a very nice presentation. You might want to check out this site: http://diabetes.healthcentersonline.com/

Jason Homan

Answer 2

Ketoacidosis is a state of methabolic acidosis due to high blood concentration of substances called ketonic bodies. It is a common complication of Diabetes mellitus,in wich the body cretes these ketonic bodies as a result of excesive fat removal to provide an alternative energy source( the liver is the main organ for the synthesis), since glucose can´t be incorporated because cells ( specially muscle, neurons, liver, white blood cells)need insuline to do that. this condition takes time to develop, and in the end it can become life threatening, for the ketonic bodies lower the blood ph and increase seruum osmolarity, both of these dangerous for organs, specially the brain, kidneys, heart. When a person or animal goes in to diabetic ketoacidosis, it must be hospitalized inmediately and stabilized with careful fluidtherapy and insuline treatment. The type of insuline used is crystaline regular( bovine)

Answer 3

Ketoacidosis is when the body has an insufficient supply of insulin it
cannot metabolize carbohydrates. Because of this inability to
metabolize carbohydrates, the muscles become starved for glucose needed
to provide the energy for work. In order to get that needed energy, the
muscle breaks down fat. Fat, when metabolized produces the by-products
called Ketones, which are normally excreted in the urine. If the body
is unable to clear the ketones through the kidneys, they build to toxic
levels and eventually lead to ketoacidosis.
At the same time the body is producing ketones, it is not using glucose.
The kidneys, through the production of urine, must remove both. The
higher the ketones and unused glucose levels, the more urine must be
produced and the body will become dehydrated.

Answer 4

Here you go...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ketoacidosis