Study of Plasma Amino Acids Changes in Elderly Patients with Chronic Renal Failure

Abstract

Many different causes of abnormal amino acid profile in uremic patients including: inadequate nutritional intake, uremic disturbances in amino acid metabolism, loss or fibrosis of renal tissues, metabolic acidosis and hormonal derangement. Some of these factors; such as metabolic acidosis are particularly corrected with dialytic therapy; but others such as decreased intake or hormonal disturbances may persist or worsen after initiation of dialysis. This study was done to investigate the changes in plasma amino acids profile in uremic elderly patients. Our study included 30 subjects, classified into three matched groups: (I) on HD, (II) CRF and a control group (III). A significant uniform decrease of Threonine, Valine and Leucine in both HD and CRF. However, a peculiar situation of significant increase in phenylalanine in HD in comparison to CRF and to control. This is similar to the significant increase of Arginine in HD group in comparison to the others.