Thornton J R, Losowsky M S
Department of Medicine, St James's University Hospital, Leeds.
Gut. 1991 Mar;32(3):306-8. doi: 10.1136/gut.32.3.306.
Whether the plasma concentration of beta endorphin was increased in hepatic cirrhosis like that of smaller opioid peptides methionine enkephalin and leucine enkephalin was determined. Its concentration in chronic renal failure was also measured. Plasma beta endorphin was not significantly raised in cirrhotic patients with or without ascites (medians 5.2 pmol/l and 4.7 pmol/l respectively) compared with disease control subjects (4.9 pmol/l) and healthy control subjects (4.9 pmol/l). In contrast, the peptide was increased 2.5 fold (p less than 0.001) in chronic renal failure (12.4 pmol/l) and was found in many of these patients' urine. The data are compatible with the hypothesis that the liver may play an important role in the elimination of opioid peptides of octapeptide size or less but not the larger peptides such as beta endorphin.
研究了肝硬化患者血浆β-内啡肽浓度是否会像较小的阿片肽甲硫氨酸脑啡肽和亮氨酸脑啡肽那样升高。同时也测定了其在慢性肾衰竭患者中的浓度。与疾病对照受试者（4.9 pmol/l）和健康对照受试者（4.9 pmol/l）相比，有腹水或无腹水的肝硬化患者血浆β-内啡肽浓度均未显著升高（中位数分别为5.2 pmol/l和4.7 pmol/l）。相比之下，该肽在慢性肾衰竭患者中升高了2.5倍（p<0.001）（12.4 pmol/l），并且在许多此类患者的尿液中也可检测到。这些数据符合以下假设：肝脏可能在消除八肽及以下大小的阿片肽方面发挥重要作用，但对诸如β-内啡肽等较大的肽不起作用。
