The effects of a gluten-free diet on catch-up growth and predicted height were evaluated in 12 children with coeliac disease diagnosed after the age of 5 years and followed for 2-5.5 years. In the majority of the patients, height and bone age were retarded at the time of diagnosis. Under a gluten-free diet growth velocity, age-related height, predicted height and relative bone age increased, height for bone age slightly decreased. In four patients the predicted height remained below the target height, indicating incomplete catch-up growth.
In five L-thyroxine-substituted hypothyroid children with partial epilepsy serum total thyroxine (T4) and free T4 (FT4) significantly (P less than 0.01) decreased following 2 months of carbamazepine (CBZ) administration (20 mg/kg per BW per day) from mean (+/- SD) values of 12.7 +/- 1.1 micrograms/dl and 15.5 +/- 1.8 pg/ml to mean values of 7.5 +/- 2.3 and 10.1 +/- 1.7, respectively. In all but one patient important changes in both serum total and free triiodothyronine (T3, FT3) were not observed; consequently T3:T4 and FT3:FT4 ratios significantly (P less than 0.05) increased in the whole series. Three subjects had post-treatment serum TSH that rose to hypothyroid levels parallel to a T4 decrease. The negligible thyroid hormone secretion and the unmodified T3-uptake (T3U) or T4-binding globulin (TBG) exclude direct effects of CBZ on thyroid gland and on carrier serum proteins, respectively. The findings observed, instead, might be due to accelerated T4 metabolic clearance together with augmented T4 to T3 conversion rate, as previously demonstrated for diphenylhydantoin. The sharp reduction in T4 and FT3 concentrations is the peripheral display of this event, which is associated with a decompensation of the metabolic status, as indicated by serum TSH enhancement. In all cases a supplement of L-thyroxine by itself was able to restore euthyroid TSH serum concentrations, suggesting that hypothyroidism in patients with partial epilepsy to whom CBZ had been administered requires a higher L-T4 substitutive regimen.
Table 1 Opiate release by the perfused rat ileum-jejunum in response to chemical and physical stimuli Values represent mean opiate concentrations (± SEM) in pooled perfusates from each 5 min period. Stimuli were given during P-2 and P-3.
Height and sitting height were measured in all the 28 patients (19 females and 9 males) of our Thalassaemic Centre who exhibited evidence of cessation of growth. Their average final stature, which had been spontaneously achieved at an age ranging from 15.0-21.5 years (mean 17.9), was slightly lower with respect to the mean standards for women (159.1 +/- 8.4 vs 160.0 +/- 6.0 cm) and men (167.8 +/- 6.4 vs 172.5 +/- 6.0 cm). Height deficiency exceeded 2 SD scores in only 3/28 patients. If compared to the familial target height, patients' stature fell within the familial range in 19/24 cases and in only one case was it below the lower limit. In the whole sample the patients' height was positively related to their familial target height (r = 0.72, P less than 0.0002) and also to mid-parental stature (r = 0.45, P less than 0.05). Heights of both females and males were superimposable on those of their own mothers and fathers respectively. Average values of either SH (76.4 +/- 3.8 vs 79.9 +/- 3.4 cm, 2 P less than 0.02) or SH/H ratio (48.9 +/- 2.5 vs 51.5 +/- 1.0, 2 P less than 0.005) were significantly lower in the female thalassaemics than in the sex-matched controls. Three females and one male showed subnormal values of both SH and SH/H ratio. Two out of these patients with eunochoid body proportions and another one with a decreased SH/H ratio have hypogonadotropic hypogonadism and are undergoing a chronic substitutive treatment with sexual hormones, which was instituted after the achievement of final stature.
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