The purpose of this study was to examine the effects of Vitamin E deficiency and/or ionizing radiation on uterine ceroidogenesis, incisor depigmentation, serum Vitamin E, haemoglobin concentration, haematocrit, 2,3-DPG and adipose tissue fatty acid composition in rats. An attempt was also made to define the nature of ceroid and to examine its relationship to lipofuscin. Rats fed a Vitamin E deficient diet deposited increasing amounts of ceroid in the uterine musculature between 90 to 261 days after the imposition of the experimental diets. This pigment was found to be essentially similar to lipofuscin. Ionizing radiation did not have any apparent effect on the rate and degree of ceroidogenesis in Vitamin E deficient rats, althought it did cause a significant decrease in the serum Vitamin E levels of both Vitamin E deficient and supplemented animals. The serum Vitamin E of the deficient animals were significantly lower than those of the supplemented animals, irrespective of their radiation status. Vitamin E deficiency also caused a depigmentation of the maxillary incisors of the animals and had no effect on the haemoglobin concentration, haematocrit and 2,3-DPG levels of these rats. Finally, Vitamin E deficiency and ionizing radiation resulted in a decrease in the polyunsaturated fatty acid content of adipose tissues. / Education, Faculty of / Curriculum and Pedagogy (EDCP), Department of / Graduate

The effect of the dietary status of vitamin A on carbohydrate metabolism, postmortem isometric tension development and shear resistance of Pectoral is major muscle was studied. Depletion studies, conducted over a five week period, indicated a definite influence of vitamin A deficiency on muscle carbohydrate metabolism. Mild hypovitaminosis A induced an increase in glycogen deposition whereas a severe deficiency led to a reduction of these elevated stores. Vitamin A deficiency did not affect the abi I ity of P. major strips to develop isometric tension postmortem. P. major strips sampled from deficient cockerels generally required longer to reach maximum tension and, in the later stages, developed significantly greater maximum tension than those of controls. The extended times to maximum tension reflected an increased muscle glycogen content. A significant increase in shear value similarly corresponded to the increased myofibrillar contraction noted in the later deficiency stages. Cockerels which had previously received a completely vitamin A deficient ration for five weeks were utilized for the two week repletion study. Though there was a distinct delay in response to the feeding of a vitamin A adequate ration, the muscle glycogen content, isometric tension parameters and shear values of repleted birds were similar to those of controls within the two week period. / Land and Food Systems, Faculty of / Graduate

No description available.

Potassium i.s one of the major constituents of the human body but its role in metabolism is not clearly defined. One reason for this is the predominant intracellular distribution of the ion and the attendant difficulties in the detection of deficiency states. Serum potassium levels are of little value as over 95% of the potassium in the body is intracellular. Balance studies and the analysis of biopsy material have been used. However, they are so time consuming that they are only of use in establishing the diagnosis retrospectively and give very little indication of the severity of the deficit. Exchangeable potassium measurements do give an indication of the severity of the deficit. However, they involve the administration of an isotope which is not always available because of its short half-life. The development of the whole body counter has overcome most of these problems.

The studies presented in this thesis represent an attempt to characterise some aspects of the abnormalities of somatomedin physiology in protein-energy malnutrition. A suitable bioassay to study somatomedin was found in that of Van den Brande and Du Caju (1974) which makes use of uniform discs of cartilage punched from slices of immature porcine costal cartilage. The handling of the cartilage discs was made easy by the specially designed incubation rack. Preincubation increased sensitivity of the cartilage, and post incubation with radioactive tracer reduced the potential interference of varying sulphate content of assay samples. Serum samples were subjected to formal multipoint parallel line bioassay and data analysed by a computer programme designed to examine such assays. The bioassay was found to be sensitive to a concentration of serum of 5% and to have an index precision of less than 0.30 (and usually less than 0.20).

The patient (T.K.), was first diagnosed as having a partial hypoxanthine-guanine phosphoribosyltransferase deficiency in 1978 when he was 20 years old. At presentation, he complained of a colicky loin-pain which radiated into his groin, and that he had had dark urine for a month. He was shown to have haematuria and urate crystalluria, and had a serum urate of 0.8mmol/l (reference range 0.12-0.5mmol/l). The diagnosis was confirmed by demonstrating a haemolysate hypoxanthine-guanine phosphoribosyltransferase activity of 550μU/mg Hb (reference range 1680-2480μU/mg Hb). Studies to determine whether the low hypoxanthine-guanine phosphoribosyltransferase activity was caused by an altered Kₘ of the enzyme for one of its substrates, showed that there was substrate inhibition of the enzyme activity by hypoxanthine. This thesis examines the patient and the variant HPRT at three levels. Firstly, a detailed and comprehensive study of the kinetic properties of the variant enzyme was made. The novel feature of the kinetics is the presence of substrate inhibition by the purine bases, with a true Kᵢ value for hypoxanthine of 80± 20μM, and a normal value for the true Kₘ. The pattern of substrate inhibition is characteristic of that associated with the formation of a dead-end complex and double inhibition experiments indicate that the form of this complex is enzyme-hypoxanthine-PPi. These unusual kinetic properties provided an opportunity to study the order of substrate binding in a way not possible for the normal enzyme and showed an ordered sequential reaction mechanism. Some limited protein-structural studies were performed and showed an altered electrophoretic mobility for the variant enzyme in non-denaturing gels. Secondly, the purine metabolic pathways in cultured cells, derived from T.K., from a patient with the Lesch-Nyhan syndrome, and from normal individuals, were studied. The cells were labelled with precursors of the de novo or of the salvage pathways, usually in the presence of a reference label, and sometimes in the presence of inhibitors of the various steps in the purine metabolic pathways. Hypoxanthine salvage was about 10% of that of control cultures. The growth of cells in a variety of selective media was also studied. Thirdly, as physician in charge of T.K., I could monitor the progress of his hyperuricaemia and observe the effects of therapy throughout the duration of this project.

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No description available.

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Objective: To identify the magnitude of anaemia and deficiencies of Fe (ID) and vitamin A (VAD) and their associated factors among rural women and children. Design: Cross-sectional, comprising a household, health and nutrition survey and determination of Hb, biochemical (serum concentrations of ferritin, retinol, C-reactive protein and alpha(1)-acid glycoprotein) and anthropometric parameters. Multivariate logistic regression examined associations of various factors with anaemia and micronutrient deficiencies. Setting: Kalale district, northern Benin. Subjects: Mother-child pairs (n 767): non-pregnant women of reproductive age (15-49 years) and children 6-59 months old. Results: In women, the overall prevalence of anaemia, ID, Fe-deficiency anaemia (IDA) and VAD was 47.7, 18.3, 11.3 and 17.7%, respectively. A similar pattern for anaemia (82.4 %), ID (23.6%) and IDA (21.2%) was observed among children, while VAD was greater at 33. 6%. Greater risk of anaemia, ID and VAD was found for low maternal education, maternal farming activity, maternal health status, low food diversity, lack of fruits and vegetables consumption, low protein foods consumption, high infection, anthropometric deficits, large family size, poor sanitary conditions and low socio-economic status. Strong differences were also observed by ethnicity, women's group participation and source of information. Finally, age had a significant effect in children, with those aged 6-23 months having the highest risk for anaemia and those aged 12-23 months at risk for ID and IDA. Conclusions: Anaemia, ID and VAD were high among rural women and their children in northern Benin, although ID accounted for a small proportion of anaemia. Multicentre studies in various parts of the country are needed to substantiate the present results, so that appropriate and beneficial strategies for micronutrient supplementation and interventions to improve food diversity and quality can be planned.