Suppose You Found an Overly High Level of Pyruvate in a Patient's

question 97

Essay

Suppose you found an overly high level of pyruvate in a patient's blood and urine. One possible cause is a genetic defect in the enzyme pyruvate dehydrogenase, but another plausible cause is a specific vitamin deficiency. Explain what vitamin might be deficient in the diet, and why that would account for high levels of pyruvate to be excreted in the urine. How would you determine which explanation is correct?

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Definitions:

Conversion Control Sequence

A method in programming languages to convert data from one format to another.

%-+10d

A format specifier in programming that displays an integer right-justified in a field of at least 10 characters, including a leading sign.

C Preprocessor

A tool in C and C++ that performs text substitution before the actual compilation process begins.