Impairment of Lipid Metabolism in Riboflavin Deficiency

The mtdn effect of riboflavin deficiency is on lipid metabolism. In experimented animals on a riboflavin-free diet, feeding a high-fat diet leads to more meirked impediment of growth, and a higher requirement for riboflavin to restore growth. There are edso changes in the patterns of long-chain polyunsaturated fatty acids in membreme phospholipids. 

Within a day of initiating a riboflavin-free diet in weanling rats, there is a 35% decrease in the oxidation of palmitoyl CoA. All three mitochondrial acyl CoA dehydrogenases are affected, although it is the short-chain acyl CoA 

2-methylbutyl-, emd isobutyl-glycine conjugates. There Me a number of riboflavin responsive organic aciduritis caused by impairment of one or another of the acyl CoA dehydrogeneises (Goodman, 1981 Veitch et aL, 1988). 

In animals, the production of C02 from [ C]palmitate or octanoate is not consistently affected by riboflavin deficiency, possibly tis a result of increeised activity of carnitine palmitoyl tremsferase, which is more a response to food deprivation than to riboflavin deUciency. However, the production of C02 from C] adipic acid is significtmtly reduced, emd responds rapidly (with some overshoot) to repletion with the viteimin. It has been su ested that the abiUty to metabolize a test dose of [ CJadipic acid may provide a sensitive means of investigating riboflavin nutritioncd status in human beings (Bates, 1989, 1990). 

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