Abstract
Choline and carnitine, which are essential nutrients for living organisms, produce trimethylamine in the intestine and are metabolized in the liver to the oxidized form trimethylamine. This trimethylamine-N-oxide is said to cause arteriosclerosis. A patient diagnosed with trimethylaminuria was used as an opportunity to measure plasma trimethylamine and trimethylamine-N-oxide in hemodialysis patients and examine their association with arteriosclerosis. Plasma TMA decreased from 68.9 μM pre-dialysis to 51.5 μM post-dialysis, and TMAO decreased from 170.4 μM pre-dialysis to 150.7 μM post-dialysis. The FMD levels were 3.36% with CVD and 5.75% without CVD, a significant difference. However, 45.1% of patients had elevated plasma TMAO post dialysis, which strongly suggests that plasma TMA and TMAO are related to intestinal bacteria, since dietary influences and TMAU patients had a significant improvement in fish odor after colonoscopy.
