Metabolic system, children

The metabolism of a growing child is not like that ofthe standard adult. Some systems are faster, some are slower. It is very hard to determine the exact state of children because it is unethical to experiment with them. The prevailing philosophy is to scale down an adult dose according to the weight ratio with an adult. 

An example of the gender dilemma is illustrated in systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) an autoimmune disease that occurs more frequently in women than men. The gender difference is attributed to differences in the metabolism of sex hormones or regulation by gonadotropin releasing hormone (GnRH). When it occurs in men, SLE tends to be more severe (Yacoub Wasef, 2004). Recent studies also indicate that SLE may be more common in nonwhite women of child bearing... 

Jen J, Ptacek LJ 2000 Channelopathies episodic disorders of the nervous system. In Schriver CR, Beaudet AL, Sly WS, Valle D, VogelsteinB, Childs B (eds) Metabolic and molecular bases of inherited disease. McGraw-Hill, New York, p 5223-5238... 

With our routine GLC-system for iirinary organic acid analysis in use for the screening for inborn errors of metabolism we detected persistent uraciluria in a few children. One of these patients will be described briefly here. Another patient showed a persistent excretion of thymine and uracil both. This child has been studied more in detail the results will be given in the present paper. 

GPC exhibits a broad concentration range in muscles of patients with neurogenic disorders. The diester was increased to 3 nmol in Charcot-Marie-Tooth and Kugelbeig-Welander diseases. Moreover, in muscles of children with meningomyelocele there was as much as 2.1 /tmol of GPC. In contrast, two children with cerebral palsy and one child with amyotrophy after encephalitis possessed only 0.1 and 0.2 / mol GPC, respectively. Amyotrophy of unknown etiology, however, showed normal GPC content (1.6 jumol). This variation in GPC indicates that the nervous system may control lecithin metabolism in muscle, and that diseases of cerebral origin may exert an inhibitory effect on this metabolism. 

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