Analysis of daily energy,protein, fat,and carbohydrate intake in citrin-deficient patients: Towards prevention of adult-onset type II citrullinemia

Patients with citrin deficiency during the adaptation/compensation period exhibit diverse clinical features and have characteristic diet of high protein, high fat, and low carbohydrate. Japanese cuisine typically contains high carbohydrate but evaluation of diet of citrin-deficient patients in 2008 showed a low energy intake and a protein:fat:carbohydrate (PFC) ratio of 19:44:37, which indicates low carbohydrate consumption rate. These findings prompted the need for diet intervention to prevent the adult onset of type II citrullinemia (CTLN2). Since the publication of the report about 10 years ago, patients are generally advised to eat what they wish under active dietary consultation and intervention. In this study, citrin-deficient patients and control subjects living in the same household provided answers to a questionnaire, filled-up a maximum 6-day food diary, and supplied physical data and information on medications if any. To study the effects of the current diet, the survey collected data from 62 patients and 45 controls comparing daily intakes of energy, protein, fat, and carbohydrate. Food analysis showed that patient's energy intake was 115% compared to the Japanese standard. The confidence interval of the PFC ratio of patients was 20–22:47–51:28–32, indicating higher protein, higher fat and lower carbohydrate relative to previous reports. The mean PFC ratio of female patients (22:53:25) was significantly different from that of male patients (20:46:34), which may explain the lower frequency of CTLN2 in females. Comparison of the present data to those published 10 years ago, energy, protein, and fat intakes were significantly higher but the amount of carbohydrate consumption remained the same. Regardless of age, most patients (except for adolescents) consumed 100–200 g/day of carbohydrates, which met the estimated average requirement of 100 g/day for healthy individuals. Finally, patients were generally not overweight and some CTLN2 patients were underweight although their energy intake was higher compared with the control subjects. We speculate that high-energy of a low carbohydrate diet under dietary intervention may help citrin-deficient patients attain normal growth and prevent the onset of CTLN2.