Study of the purine metabolism in obese patients during a slimming diet.

Uric acid assays were performed in the blood serum from 20 obese patients (19 women and 1 man, with a mean age of 39.75 +/- 8.16 years), before and after an average period of three weeks of hypocaloric diet (400-500 cal/day) during which they lost about 8 kg of body weight each. The variations of uricemia were followed up in relation with the weight loss and with the presence or absence of changes in the plasma lipid values. The mean rise of uricemia in the whole lot of subjects, as well as in those who lost more than 8 kg b.w. were weakly significant, as compared to the initial values. In the patients distributed according to the changes of lipid values, the increase was not significant. In conditions of rapid weight loss, even when the diet was supplemented by 70 g proteins/day, the serum uric acid values rose up to the limit of plasma urate solubility. This imposes a periodical check-up of uricemia, at the beginning, in the course and at the end of the periods of rapid weight loss, in view of detecting and correcting the eventual disorders which might occur in such conditions.