Urinary Organic Acids Quantitated in a Healthy North Indian Pediatric Population

Abstract

Human urine gives evidence of the metabolism in the body and contains numerous organic acids and other compounds at a variety of concentration. The concentration of organic acids in urine varies from population to population due to genotype, food habits and other epigenetic and environmental influences. Knowledge of the reference values for urinary organic acids in a healthy pediatric population is very important for critical evaluation. This study was designed to quantify 16 organic acids in a healthy north Indian pediatric population. Early morning urine samples from healthy pediatric subjects of age 1 day to 16 years who did not have symptoms of any disease were analyzed for organic acid content. The children were not on any supplemental vitamins or drugs and were on a free and unrestricted diet. The creatinine concentration of each sample was determined before organic acid analysis. Organic acids were extracted from urine with ethyl acetate, extracted residue was air dried, converted into trimethylsilyl derivatives and analysed by gas chromatography mass spectrometry. Here we reported the age wise mean values and standard deviations for each compound, adjusted for creatinine content (mmol/mol of creatinine). We found the concentration of most of the metabolites are higher in our population in comparison to other populations. Such data may help to provide a basis for diagnosing metabolic abnormalities in patients in a specific ethnicity.