Citrulline Challenge Study for Healthy Subjects in the United Kingdom

There are many forms of small bowel disease but their direct consequences on small bowel function are often very hard, if not impossible, to establish. It would be helpful if there was a reliable blood test to find out how well cells in the intestine are working. The amino acid citrulline is produced mainly by these cells, and therefore holds promise as a biological marker. Some previous studies have shown that fasting citrulline gave a good indication as to how many intestinal cells were present. However, other authors have not been able to confirm this. Most of the citrulline in the blood is derived from another amino acid, glutamine, in a metabolic process that occurs in the intestinal cells, and most of the remainder comes from another amino acid, arginine. A further potential marker of intestinal cell function is the amino acid 3-methylhistidine. It is possible that a dynamic test, which incorporates time for conversion from one amino acid to another in the intestinal cells, might perform better. The investigators therefore propose a study of oral glutamine, arginine, and 3-methylhistidine compared with citrulline itself or placebo (glucose) as it is hypothesized that these might increase the amount of citrulline more reproducibly. An initial study in healthy subjects is required to establish whether this is true, and if so to provide a normal range prior to investigation of patients who have or who might have the short bowel syndrome, and in whom the test would be clinically useful. In this study, the subjects will take each of the amino acids and placebo in random order. Between each 6 hour-long visit the subjects will have at least one week where they are independent of the research team and during which they can behave normally. During each visit subjects will have a sequence of blood samples from an in-dwelling venous cannula, taken before and over 6 hours after a single small oral dose of that day's amino acid given as a small volume drink. Urine will