Kwashiorkor Brain

In Cape Town the zinc concentration in the liver but not in the brain, heart, or muscle of children dying from kwashiorkor was significantly lower than normal. Plasma zinc levels were also low in marasmic infants. 

Abnormal levels of certain amino acids are found in the plasma of children with kwashiorkor. It therefore seemed important to try to reproduce these abnormalities in the rat so that their effects on brain... 

The uptake of [ C]-methionine and [ H]-histidine into the brains of the low-protein animals was accelerated in the case of methionine, this could be explained by enhanced incorporation into protein and thus by a change in protein synthesis. The raised histidine levels in the brain, on the other hand, were clearly related to the raised plasma levels. A disturbance of histidine metabolism occurs in children with kwashiorkor, resulting in the urinary excretion of urocanic acid. ... 

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