Case report: A Thai patient with Leber's hereditary optic neuropathy linked to mitochondrial DNA 14484 mutation.

A young Thai male presented with bilateral visual loss and disc pallor. The 14484 mutation responsible for Leber's hereditary optic neuropathy (LHON) was identified on blood mitochondrial analysis. His visual loss was more severe than the visual loss described in Caucasian and Japanese patients and showed no improvement. He had no other identifiable mutations related to LHON nor any associated neurological disorder. This is the first case report of LHON with the 14484 mutation in a Thai patient.

Starch, sucrose, glucose, fructose and acidity in Thai vegetables.

Vegetables are the main sources of vitamins, minerals and plant fibres. Some vegetables contain also protein and carbohydrate in considerable amounts. The amounts of carbohydrate of various vegetables should be particularly considered because their values in most nutrition tables are usually determined by “difference”. They were calculated by subtracting from 100 the sum percentages of protein, lipid, ash, water and other substances. Thus the values included not only both available and unavailable carbohydrates, but also all errors which occurred in the process of determination of each substance. In addition, the amounts of various kinds of available carbohydrate, viz, starch, sucrose, glucose, and fructose in Thai vegetables which may posses some clinical significance have never been reported. The present study reveals the amounts of various kinds and total amounts of available carbohydrates of 45 Thai vegetables determined by the same enzymatic method as described in the study of Thai fruits, but the amounts of expensive enzymes and some reagents were reduced to one half, and the procedure was somewhat modified to attain the best accuracy. The results showing the amounts of available carbohydrate are as anticipated. Of 31 kinds of vegetables, the values of carbohydrate content present in the “Table of Thai Food Composition” of the Division of Nutrition, Department of Public Health, are 531% (range -43 up to 5,669%) higher than those of available carbohydrate; especially the values from the vegetables which compose of much hard fibres (coral leaves and young leaves of lead tree) make the greatest difference (3,746 and 5,668%), but the amazing actual amount difference presents in djenkol bean (24.27 g/100 g difference). Thirty nine kinds (86.7%) contain only 0.13-3.84% of available carbohydrate, and only 6 kinds (13.3%) contain 4.7-5.4%; these are pumpkin, carrot, mung bean sprouts, djenkol bean, sweet pea and yam bean. Leafy vegetables have lower values than the others. The main sugars are in the form of glucose and fructose. In only 3 kinds, sucrose forms more than 50% of the total sugars; they are carrot, ivygourd and djenkol bean, but the last two have actually little amounts of sucrose (0.28 & 0.16%). Nineteen kinds (42.2%) contain starch (0.14-4.85%) and of these only 6 kinds (cockroach berry, pumpkin, sweet pea, yam bean, mung bean sprouts and djenkol bean) contain more than 1%. As in Thai fruits, it is noticeable that the patterns of same species are almost the same. The acidity of Thai vegetables is generally low (pH = 5.64+0.46, titratable acidity = 1.78+1.49 mE/100g edible portion). From the stated three characteristics of Thai vegetables, i.e. low content of available carbohydrate, same sugar patterns of the same species, and low acidity, the study on 45 kinds of Thai vegetables should be sufficient to represent Thai vegetables in general. It may be concluded that the available carbohydrate in Thai vegetables is generally much lower than in Thai fruits, and the amounts of fructose as well as sucrose are too low to be significance in an intolerated patients. Of the investigated vegetables, only 5 kinds (sugar pea, carrot, onion flower, pumpkin and onion) contain 1-2% of fructose or sucrose. Vegetables are therefore very appropriate for weight – or carbohydrate intake – reduction because they can be consumed as much as desired with negligible calories of negligible amount of available carbohydrate. On the other hand, one must keep in mind that people who consume vegetables as their main food, may have deficient intake of calories, protein, and some vitamins.