ABSTRACT. The polyamine concentration in rat milk and food, human milk, and infant formulas was estimated by HPLC. In rat milk, the concentration of putrescine and spermine was low (generally under 2.5 nmol . mL-' for putrescine and under 1 nmol.mL-' for spermine). The spermidine concentration was higher and seemed to increase during lactation. The rat food was richer in polyamines than the rat milk (about 150 times for putrescine and spermine, about 30 times for spermidine). We already proved that ingestion of spermine or spermidine can induce precocious maturation of the rat intestine. The present observations suggest that polyamines contained in rat food could play an important role in postnatal maturation of the rat intestine. The polyamine concentration of human milk was measured from 60 different mothers during a period extending from the 1st wk to the 6th mo of lactation. Great variation was observed. During the 1st mo of lactation, the general pattern was as follows: putrescine concentration generally varied little (from 1 to 3 nmol.mL-I), spermine and spermidine concentrations showed a similar pattern (the highest values appeared at the end of the 1st wk of suckling). After the 4th mo of lactation, putrescine concentration increased slightly, whereas spermine and spermidine concentration stayed almost stable. The concentrations of polyamines in 18 powdered milks for babies were estimated. Spermine and spermidine contents were lower than those in human milk. A protective effect of spermine or spermidine against alimentary allergies is suggested. (Pediatr Res 32: [58][59][60][61][62][63]1992) In the rat, maturation of the gastrointestinal tract occurs during the 3rd postnatal wk (for example, see 1-4). Before maturation, the lactase sp act of the small bowel mucosa is high, whereas sucrase and maltase are very low. This immature mucosa is characterized histologically by the presence of enterocytes containing a large supranuclear vacuole and an apical canalicular system probably involved in nonspecific protein transfer through the gut wall. At the moment of maturation (1 8th-20th postnatal d, i.e. the time of weaning) mucosal sp act of maltase and sucrase increase dramatically, whereas lactase sp act decreases to very low values. At the same time, enterocytes lose their apical canalicular system as well as their supranuclear vacuole and nonspe-

A retrospective study based on 4,307 drug patient records was designed to establish a chart of the consumption of benzodiazepines administered orally in a 635-bed teaching hospital, and to determine the influence of patient-related parameters (age, sex) and hospital-related parameters (type of services, prescription habits, etc.) on benzodiazepine utilization. Another objective was to evaluate to which extent benzodiazepine consumption can be induced by hospitalization. A minor but statistically significant difference (p < 0.05) was observed between the proportion of male (42.7%) and female (46.5%) users. Besides, when evaluating the consumption in number of defined daily doses per 100 beddays, there was little difference between the consumption of male (51.2 defined daily doses per 100 beddays) and female (52.8 defined daily doses per 100 beddays) patients. A significant influence of age was also observed with an increase of benzodiazepine use for patients aged from 15-20 to 40-45, followed by a progressive decrease for higher ages. With hypnotics, no peak of consumption related to age was observed but an increase of consumption from age 15-20 to 30-35. For higher ages the consumption of hypnotics was nearly stable or rising slowly. High variations in benzodiazepine utilization were recorded between hospital wards (median: 50.77 defined daily doses per 100 beddays, range 0.23-263.9). Finally, it was found that 6.8% of patients with a benzodiazepine treatment initiated during hospitalization may be considered as potential benzodiazepine consumers after discharge.

These data suggest that kidney revascularisation in patients with ischaemic nephropathy can restore or stabilise renal function, preventing evolution and end-stage renal disease and dialysis dependency.