BACKGROUND Ninety-five percent of the body carnitine pool resides in skeletal muscle where it plays a vital role in fuel metabolism. However, vegetarians obtain negligible amounts of carnitine from their diet. OBJECTIVE We tested the hypothesis that muscle carnitine uptake is elevated in vegetarians compared with that in nonvegetarians to maintain a normal tissue carnitine content. DESIGN F...

background systemic carnitine deficiency may present with apnea, hypotonia, and poor growth. premature infants often manifest these symptoms and are at risk of developing carnitine deficiency because of immaturity of the biosynthetic pathway, lack of sufficient predelivery transplacental transport, and lack of sufficient exogenous supplementation. objective this study was undertaken to examine ...

Carnitine deficiency related to epilepsy or antagonism of carnitine by antiepileptic drugs (AEDs) has attracted increasing attention since the first recognition of a neuromuscular deficiency syndrome in 1973’. Carnitine deficiency is linked to the potentially fatal hepatotoxicity that occasionally attends valproate therapy, particularly in children2, and has been documented in adult and pediatr...

We report on three Chinese neonates with carnitine-acylcarnitine translocase deficiency. They presented within the first 48 hours of life. Two neonates were found in cardiac arrest; one of them survived after resuscitation. The third neonate suddenly developed cardiorespiratory insufficiency and succumbed eventually. The clustering of three cases in 5 years suggests that carnitine-acylcarnitine...

We analyze markers of carnitine insufficiency and deficiency, lysine (LYS) and methionine (MET), in 39 neonates with intrapartum hypoxia (selection criteria: umbilical artery pH <7.20, lactate >1.8 mmol/l and PaO2 <25 mm Hg), and in 35 healthy newborn infants (control group) in the early neonatal period (1-7 days of life). Free (FC), total (TC) carnitine and acylcarnitines (AC=short-chain+long-...

BACKGROUND The aim of the present study was to establish a non-invasive, fast and robust enzymatic assay to confirm fatty acid oxidation defects (FAOD) in humans following informative newborn-screening or for selective screening of patients suspected to suffer from FAOD. MATERIAL/METHODS The reliability of this method was tested in whole blood from FAOD patients with specific enzymatic defect...

Plasma and urine free and acyl carnitine were measured in 19 children with nephropathic cystinosis and renal Fanconi syndrome. Each patient exhibited a deficiency of plasma free carnitine (mean 11.7 +/- 4.0 [SD] nmol/ml) compared with normal control values (42.0 +/- 9.0 nmol/ml) (P less than 0.001). Mean plasma acyl carnitine in the cystinotic subjects was normal. Four subjects with Fanconi syn...

Cardiac complications are the leading cause of mortality in patients with chronic renal failure. Secondary carnitine deficiency, which is frequently observed in hemodialysis patients, has been associated with cardiac hypertrophy and heart failure and may impair myocardial fatty acid oxidation. In chronic kidney disease, impaired carnitine homeostasis also may affect myocardial metabolism. In th...