Clinical Trial: Study of Antioxidants and Oxidants in Malnourished Children

Study Status: Completed
Recruit Status: Unknown status
Study Type: Interventional

Official Title: Glutathione Homeostasis and Oxidant Damage in Kwashiorkor

Brief Summary: It is believed that the organs of severely malnourished children malfunction because harmful compounds called oxidants injure the tissues in these organs. In a healthy person oxidants are made harmless because another compound called glutathione neutralizes them. Glutathione is made from three amino acids that we get from the protein we eat in our food. We found that malnourished children were not making enough glutathione because they lacked one of these amino acids called cysteine. In this study we determine why malnourished children do not have sufficient cysteine, and we will feed malnourished children a whey-based diet which is rich in cysteine during their treatment to determine whether they will make more glutathione. This in turn may make their organs recover faster. These findings will let us know whether malnourished children can recover faster if they are given more cysteine during the early phase of treatment.

Detailed Summary:
Sponsor: Baylor College of Medicine

Current Primary Outcome:

• small intestine, skin function and red blood cell gluathione synthesis [ Time Frame: after intervention ]

  The effect of dietary supplementation with either a mixture of SAAs or alanine (controls) on:

  1. buccal tissue protein synthesis, small intestine structure, integrity and function (i.e. mixed mucosal and mucins protein synthesis rate, mucosal GSH synthesis and concentration, villous height and area and crypt depth, intestinal absorptive capacity and degree of mucosal leakiness, and synthesis of the starch digestive enzymes sucrase-isomaltase and maltase-glucoamylase, plus in vivo starch digestion and absorption) in groups of age- and gender-matched children with edematous SCU in the severely malnourished state.
  2. skin protein synthesis rate, rate of closure of skin lesions
  3. Red blood cell glutathione synthesis rate and cysteine production
• immune capacity [ Time Frame: after intervention ]
  synthesis rate of selected acute phase proteins

Original Primary Outcome:

Current Secondary Outcome:

Original Secondary Outcome:

Information By: Baylor College of Medicine

Dates:
Date Received: September 15, 2003
Date Started: June 2003
Date Completion: March 2016
Last Updated: January 27, 2015
Last Verified: January 2015