Effect of dietary-turmeric on ammonia metabolism.

Male Sprague-Dawley rats were fed a control diet or the control diet supplemented with 1% turmeric for 10 weeks. Changes in ammonia and urea were investigated as potential marker products of free radical damage to protein and subsequent metabolism of those damaged proteins in vivo. The data suggested that the concentrations of ammonia and urea, major by- products of nitrogen metabolism are unchanged by the oxidant damage and lipid peroxidation and that their control in vivo is a dynamic equilibrium of various metabolic pathways