Acute non-traumatic pain increases the hepatic amino- to urea-N conversion in normal man

Severe stress results in a catabolic state with nitrogen (N) loss via hepatic urea synthesis, and in most situations a sensation of pain. Our purpose was to establish whether pain per se upregulates liver function as to urea synthesis. Ten healthy male volunteers were investigated on 3 occasions in...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Journal of hepatology 1999-10, Vol.31 (4), p.647-655
Main Authors: GREISEN, J, GRØFTE, T, HANSEN, P. O, JENSEN, T. S, VILSTRUP, H
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Acute Disease
Adult
Amino Acids - metabolism
Anesthetics, Local - pharmacology
Biological and medical sciences
Cross-Over Studies
Electric Stimulation
Epinephrine - blood
Gastroenterology. Liver. Pancreas. Abdomen
Hormones - blood
Humans
Hydrocortisone - blood
Liver - metabolism
Liver. Biliary tract. Portal circulation. Exocrine pancreas
Male
Medical sciences
Mepivacaine - pharmacology
Nitrogen - metabolism
Norepinephrine - blood
Other diseases. Semiology
Pain - blood
Pain - etiology
Pain - metabolism
Reference Values
Urea - metabolism
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Summary:Severe stress results in a catabolic state with nitrogen (N) loss via hepatic urea synthesis, and in most situations a sensation of pain. Our purpose was to establish whether pain per se upregulates liver function as to urea synthesis. Ten healthy male volunteers were investigated on 3 occasions in a crossover design. Self-controlled electrical pain was applied to the abdominal skin for 30 min to an intensity of 8 on a visual analogue scale from 0 to 10. Next, the electric profile was reproduced during local analgesia (mepivacaine 2.5 mg/kg bw), and the pain was scored to only 0.5. Finally, there was a control experiment with no intervention. Alanine infusion (1 mmol/kg/h) was started 2 h before intervention and continued throughout the investigation. Urea-N synthesis rate (UNSR) was estimated hourly as urinary excretion corrected for accumulation in body water and gut hydrolysis. Pain increased the Functional Hepatic Nitrogen Clearance (FHNC) assessed by the ratio UNSR/AAN (in the 3 h following pain) by 20% (22.7+/-1.2 vs 19.0+/-0.7 l/h (control), p
ISSN:0168-8278
1600-0641
DOI:10.1016/S0168-8278(99)80344-4