blind, controlled study of glycerol phenylbutyrate in hepatic encephalopathy. Comment Hepatic encephalopathy (HE) is a serious neuro-psychiatric complication of both acute and chronic liver disease. Historically, the role of ammonia accumulation has dominated explanations of the patho-genesis of HE. However, evidence has emerged for a role of other concurrent factors such as inflammation , hypo...

BACKGROUND AND AIMS Lactulose fermentation by the intestinal microflora acidifies the gut contents, resulting in an increased resistance to colonisation by acid sensitive pathogens. The extent of fermentation should be controlled to prevent acid induced epithelial cell damage. Considering the buffering capacity of calcium phosphate and its intestinal cytoprotective effects, whether supplemental...

Lactulose is currently the drug of choice for the treatment of hepatic encephalopathy. It is, however, only available as a syrup which is contaminated with other sugars. Consequently patients may express aversion to its excessively sweet taste and many experience nausea because of its hyperosmolarity. Lactitol is a disaccharide analogue of lactulose which can be produced as a pure crystalline p...

liquid paraffin has been suggested as a good laxative comparing to lactulose as a treatment option in pediatric constipation. this study was performed to compare liquid paraffin with lactulose in pediatric constipation. a total of 247 patients (127 males and 120 females) aged 2-12 years (mean 4.1 ± 2.7 years) with chronic functional constipation were included in an 8 week, randomized, controlle...

The synthetic disaccharide lactulose is known to improve the intestinal microflora by stimulating the growth of selected probiotic bacteria in the gut. In our experiment the effects of lactulose in combination with the probiotic bacteria Enterococcus faecium on growth performance and morphology of the bovine intestine were examined. Calves aged 39 ± 2 days were randomised to three feeding group...

It is assumed that the outcome of the lactulose/rhamnose gut permeability test is not influenced by pre- or post-absorptive factors. The aim of our study was to investigate the role of a pre-absorptive factor, i.e. small-intestinal transit, and a post-absorptive factor, i.e. renal clearance. Ten healthy male subjects were studied. Urinary lactulose and rhamnose excretion was measured after intr...

This study investigated the effects of dietary lactulose supplementation on broiler growth performance, intestinal histomorphology, cecal microflora, and cecal short-chain fatty acid (SCFA) concentrations. A total of 245 one-day-old male broiler chickens were randomly assigned to 5 different treatments, with 7 replicates including 7 birds each. The birds received the same basal diet based on co...