Chronic Hepatic Encephalopathy

Abstract

Therapy of chronic hepatic encephalopathy is often frustrating, limited as it is by the ability to adequately nourish such patients. Protein is needed for repair, but such patients are intolerant of protein. Previous work from this and other laboratories has suggested that the distorted plasma amino acid pattern may be causally related to hepatic encephalopathy. A single, well-studied, long-term patient received therapy with a branched-chain amino-acid—enriched elemental diet that not only enabled adequate nutrition with protein but resulted in improvement in hepatic function as well as reversal of some aspects of hepatic encephalopathy that heretofore have been deemed irreversible. The results confirm that branched-chain—enriched amino acid diets previously successful in the intravenous mode may be successfully used in chronic long-term support of patients with protein intolerance, with improvement in hepatic function secondary to improvement in nutrition. (JAMA242:347-349, 1979)