Behavior of plasma amino acids in alcohol-induced chronic liver diseases

In chronic liver diseases of alcoholic and non-alcoholic origin there are strikine differences of aspartate, glutamate and prolin. Where as plasma levels of aspartate and prolin are in most cases higher than in non-alcoholics, glutamate shows a contrary behaviour except in hepatic coma. The plasma ratio of alpha-amino-butyric acid to leucin allows no distinction of alcoholic from non-alcoholic liver lesion.