So I was watching an episode of House and one of his many theories was that the kid had an OTC deficiency. My curiosity lead me to find out a little bit more what this deficiency was. A quick definition of it is defined here:
Basically, OTC deficiency is a Urea Cycle disorder (UCD). Ornithine transcarbamoylase (OTC) is one of the five enzymes that take part in the urea cycle to rid the body of ammonia, which is a toxic breakdown product of protein. If OTC is missing (deficient) then ammonia will accumulate and lead to severe symptoms, ultimately death. This is the most common UCD and is genetic.
However, before reading about the urea cycle, I read about amino acids. There are 10 amino acids that the body can produce. There are 10 essential amino acids that the body needs that will be supplied from our diet. These 20 amino acids are found within proteins as the building blocks. Anyways, I was looking at the list of nonessential amino acids, the ones the body is able to produce, and I came across two that looked familiar: asparagine and aspartate. These two remind me of Aspartame and got me thinking. This morning I had some yogurt with sucralose (splenda) in it. These artificial sweeteners got my curiosity in gear again.
Continue with sweeteners
More “boring” information on the urea cycle, nitrogen, amino acids, can be found here:
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