Guest guest Posted April 17, 2006 Report Share Posted April 17, 2006 and others, Hopefully you can explain this to me. It's a part of the malabsorption situation that I don't understand. If your main concern is that your son is terribly thin, and presumably underweight, wouldn't a serum albumin and perhaps a prealbumin provide a satisfactory indication of protein digestion and absorption? Is there a supposition that there is a deficiency in the absorption of specific essential amino acids that would account for being thin? I'm primarily coming at this from the standpoint of cost. An albumin level is probably one tenth the cost of an amino acid screen, or even less. Is there a specific benefit in this context to assaying each of the amino acids? Jim ________________________________ st Subject: [ ] amino acid testing Hi listmates, After over two years of biomed, my son still has obvious malabsorption issues and is terribly thin in spite of eating huge amounts of food. Since he has to have labs done soon to recheck his liver enzymes, I wanted to have his amino acid levels checked. I read in CSB that JM recommends fasting plasma amino acid be checked. Is that still the best way to check them? Can it be done through a conventional lab or should a specialized lab be used? Should the panel include essential and nonessential amino acids? Thanks for the feedback - I need to call DAN to request the rx sent to me and want to get the correct testing done. Also, can any DAN usually interpret these? Thanks as always, --------------------------------- How low will we go? Check out Messenger's low PC-to-Phone call rates. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest guest Posted April 17, 2006 Report Share Posted April 17, 2006 I don't have any idea. My concern is that our doc will be able to interpret the results in a way that it won't be another wasted test. As far as cost, the huge amount of food (organic/free-range) that my children eat is costing us big time right now. I am hoping that in addition to helping my children gain weight/grow and perhaps improve cognitively, if they can be satisfied with less food, that would be financially beneficial as well. Do you have any suggestions? Is this a standard test? Thanks for any feedback. > > and others, > > Hopefully you can explain this to me. It's a part of the malabsorption > situation that I don't understand. If your main concern is that your > son is terribly thin, and presumably underweight, wouldn't a serum > albumin and perhaps a prealbumin provide a satisfactory indication of > protein digestion and absorption? Is there a supposition that there is > a deficiency in the absorption of specific essential amino acids that > would account for being thin? I'm primarily coming at this from the > standpoint of cost. An albumin level is probably one tenth the cost of > an amino acid screen, or even less. Is there a specific benefit in this > context to assaying each of the amino acids? > > Jim > ________________________________ > > > > st > Subject: [ ] amino acid testing > > > Hi listmates, > > After over two years of biomed, my son still has obvious malabsorption > issues and is terribly thin in spite of eating huge amounts of food. > Since he has to have labs done soon to recheck his liver enzymes, I > wanted to have his amino acid levels checked. I read in CSB that JM > recommends fasting plasma amino acid be checked. Is that still the best > way to check them? Can it be done through a conventional lab or should > a specialized lab be used? Should the panel include essential and > nonessential amino acids? Thanks for the feedback - I need to call DAN > to request the rx sent to me and want to get the correct testing done. > Also, can any DAN usually interpret these? > Thanks as always, > > > > --------------------------------- > How low will we go? Check out Messenger's low PC-to-Phone call > rates. > > Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest guest Posted April 17, 2006 Report Share Posted April 17, 2006 > and others, > > Hopefully you can explain this to me. It's a part of the malabsorption > situation that I don't understand. If your main concern is that your > son is terribly thin, and presumably underweight, wouldn't a serum > albumin and perhaps a prealbumin provide a satisfactory indication of > protein digestion and absorption? Dr. Popplewell is correct. The plasma amino test is not necessary or appropriate for this situation. >Is there a supposition that there is > a deficiency in the absorption of specific essential amino acids that > would account for being thin? This is rare - if it happens at all. > I'm primarily coming at this from the > standpoint of cost. An albumin level is probably one tenth the cost of > an amino acid screen, or even less. Is there a specific benefit in this > context to assaying each of the amino acids? Well, it makes them and the doctor feel like they are doing more sophisticated and specialized testing so they feel better about themselves. It is quite difficult for people without a lot of experience to figure things out so they tend to get a lot of unnecessary tests which is part of the learning experience, and necessary for them to get an answer in the absence of adequate education and experience in the relevant area. Actually the most likely situation is simply functionally inadequate adrenal performance, which if they are very sharp they'd pick up on the test as a relative elevation of leucine, isoleucine and valine. However it is far easier and cheaper to test for that by getting a botthe of adrenal cortex and giving the kid a few capsules a day for a week. If that doesn't work the next most likely thing is some profound food reaction, and we need to discuss diet. if that isn't it, there is some slight possibilty of failure to release bile and digestive enzymes, but that is correctable in many ways, e. g. giving the kid digestive enzymes which has hopefully already been tried. People tend to test too much and do trial interventions too little because the tests seem more scientific, and easier to interpret - that is, until you have the results in hand. BTW, very few DAN! doctors can interpret most of the tests we discuss, or even simple mainstream tests. If you want your child to get well you have to take the responsibility to ask around and look up what the results mean. > Jim Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest guest Posted April 17, 2006 Report Share Posted April 17, 2006 Great - I have a test kit for the CSDA that I need to get out this week also. I will try the other suggestions and wait for the CSDA results. > > , > > I had the urine amino acid testing for myself and my son. I have > malabsorption that I had confirmed years ago through a fecal fat test which your dr. can > order for your son and the kit can be picked up at any Quest or Labcorp lab > which would be very inexpensive. My urine amino acid test showed very high > levels of malabsorption. For malabsorption issues, though, it would seem better > to do a comprehensive stool test which would measure a number of parameters > pertaining to digestion. > > Sharon > > > Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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