Abstract
The diets of 5 patients with phenylketonuria or maple-syrup-urine disease were supplemented with yeast which was rich in selenium. For 120 days the patients received 45 μg Se/day to increase the Se content of their diets to 10–12ng Se/Kjoule. Before supplementation the selenium content of serum (5–15 ng/ml) and whole blood (10–27 ng/ml), and the activity of the erythrocyte glutathione peroxidase (0.19–2.69 U37/g Hb), amounted to only 10–20% of normal. The serum selenium content reached normal values within 4 weeks of supplementation, followed by normalisation of the selenium content of whole blood within 4–8 weeks. Restoration of the activity of erythrocyte glutathione peroxidase took 9 to 15 weeks —the red cell life span. There was a significant positive correlation between the selenium content of the erythrocytes and the activity of erythrocyte glutathione peroxidase.
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Lombeck, I., Kasperek, K., Bachmann, D. et al. Selenium requirements in patients with inborn errors of amino acid metabolism and selenium deficiency. Eur J Pediatr 134, 65–68 (1980). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00442405
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00442405