In vivo 1H Magnetic Resonance Spectroscopy Study of the Effects of Carnitine Supplementation on Skeletal Muscle Metabolites and Rehabilitation Exercise Performance in Post Polio Syndrome patients

• Main Authors: Chun-Cheng Chen, 陳俊成
• Other Authors: Chi-Long Juang
• Format: Others
• Language: zh-TW
• Published: 2008
• Online Access: http://ndltd.ncl.edu.tw/handle/4qruk7

碩士 === 元培科技大學 === 影像醫學研究所 === 96 === In recent years, it was found out that many polio patients expressed progressive symptom in muscle neuron system during the prime of life, those symptoms were so-called Post Polio Syndrome (PPS). With the main function to accelerate the long-chain fatty acid oxidization in human body, carnitine is generally used as nutritional ergogenic aids by the endurance athletes. In-vivo Magnetic Resonance Spectroscopy (In vivo MRS) is a noninvasive technique for physiological metabolites quantitative measurements. We therefore employed it as the tool for the effects of carnitine supplementation on skeletal muscle metabolites and rehabilitation exercise performance in PPS patients. Symphony 1.5T MRI (Siemens, Erlangen, Germany) was used for in-vivo MRS measurements in this study. 20 volunteers (13 females, 7 males; average age, 48 ± 9 years) were diagnosed as PPS patients by rehabilitation Doctor, each of them will consume carnitine (1g / day) for 28 days. During the period of the supplementation, each subject processed hydrotherapy exercise frequently to help carnitine absorption and fat metabolism. In vivo MRS measurements were performed before and after carnitine supplementation. After the post-processing of spectroscopy, the variation of metabolites of muscle were extracted and analyzed. For comparison, another 10 healthy volunteers were recruited. From our results, we found some of the metabolite signals, such as creatine, carnitine and intra-myocellular lipids (IMCL), generally showed in the spectra of healthy subjects, but were absent in the spectra of some PPS patients. However, the extra-myocellular lipids(EMCL) always has the highest content in calf muscles of PPS patients (P＜0.01). Furthermore, our results also pointed out that, calf muscle containing less IMCL on patients with paralysis of both lower extremities than those patients with paralysis of single lower extremities (P＜0.05). After carnitine supplementation, EMCL content was much lower in the PPS patients' atrophy side calf muscle (P＜0.05). In addition, IMCL content was increasing (P＜0.05). By the way, from the questionnaires, the ability of exercise and efficiency of rehabilitation of these volunteers were improved since carnitine supplementation.