Utilization of urea nitrogen for albumin synthesis in the stagnant loop syndrome.

A study of urea and albumin metabolism was carried out in a patient with the stagnant loop syndrome and in a control subject using radioisotopic and stable isotopic techniques. The patient had a higher rate of urea synthesis, urea hydrolysis in the gut, and of incorporation of recycled urea nitrogen into albumin. Although only a small proportion (0.4%) of the urea nitrogen available was used for albumin synthesis and this constituted only 0.8% of the daily nitrogen requirement for this purpose, the reutilization of nitrogen was relatively much greater than was observed in the control study.