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Rickets and Protein Malnutrition in Northern Nigeria
*Departments of Biochemistry, School of Medicine, University of New Mexico Albuquerque, New Mexico 87131, USA
**Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, Medical University of South Carolina Charleston, SouthCarolina 29425-0001, USA
***Departments of Pathology, School of Medicine, University of New Mexico Albuquerque, New Mexico 87131, USA
Department of Paediatrics, Faculty of Medical Sciences, University of Jos Jos, Nigeria
To whom all correspondence should be addressed: Basic Medical Sciences Building Room 249, Department of Biochemistry, School of Medicine, University of New Mexico, Albuquerque, NM 87106–5221, USA. Tel: (505) 272–3333; Fax: (505) 272–9107
The aim of the study was to explore the relationship between protein nutritional status and the development of rickets in children living in northern Nigeria. The diagnosis of rickets in 16 children between the ages of 10 months and 7 years was confirmed using established, and recently developed clinical and biochemical parameters. Twenty-seven children devoid of skeletal stigmata were age- and sex-matched to the rachitic patients. A battery of clinical laboratory and anthropometric measurements designed to assess calcium homeostasis, skeletal growth, the extent of bone remodeling or resorption, and protein nutritional status were performed on all subjects.
Our central finding was that although the rachitic children were moderately malnourished, their protein nutritional status was significantly better as measured by the serum prealbumin concentration (15.4 v. 12.5 mg/dl, P = 0.0012) when compared with the severely malnourished children who were devoid of any indication of rickets. This may be due, in part, to the fact that actively growing children are more likely to develop rickets than are children whose linear growth is impeded. Unexpectedly, we found that the mean concentrations of serum 1, 25-dihydroxyvitamin D in both the rachitic and control group were higher than any values for the active vitamin D metabolite previously reported in the literature.
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  L M Oginni, C A Sharp, O S Badru, J Risteli, M W J Davie, M Worsfold, P R Fischer, L M Oginni, O S Badru, C A Sharp, et al. Radiological and biochemical resolution of nutritional rickets with calcium * COMMENTARY Arch. Dis. Child., September 1, 2003; 88(9): 812 - 817. [Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]
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