Uric Acid: Neuroprotective or Neurotoxic? To the Editor: A decades-old scientific dispute pits “as a pro-oxidant, uric acid causes disease”1–3 against “uric acid is an important antioxidant.”2–6 The antioxidant properties of urate are long-known.6 However, arguably, this issue per se originated in our complimentary reports of urate as both a primate evolutionary substitute for ascorbate4 (a put...

Lesch-Nyhan disease is a disorder of purine metabolism resulting from mutations in the gene for hypoxanthine guanine phosphoribosyl transferase on the X chromosome. It is characterized by hyperuricemia and all of its consequences, as in gout; but in addition, patients have impressive disease of the central nervous system. This includes spasticity, involuntary movements, and retardation of motor...

UNLABELLED Parents of 40 patients with Lesch-Nyhan disease completed a questionnaire detailing developmental history, life course, management, medication, factors influencing variability and topography of self-injury. Several conclusions were reached. Characteristics: Biting was the predominant form, perhaps only because of the difficulty of preventing it. There was considerable variability in ...