Cicely D. Williams, “A Nutritional Disease in Childhood Associated with a Maize Diet”, Archives of Diseases in Childhood, volume 8, 1933, page 423 is the first description of “kwashiorkor”. Kwashiorkor is a starvation of protein. This is to distinguish kwashiorkor from caloric-starvation. Proteins are amino acid polymers. Kwashiorkor is a deficiency of amino acids of cellular ribosomes to translate mRNA into cellular proteins. This fundamentally means kwashiorkor is rarely seen in humans. This is why Cicely D. Williams published the paper. The “urea cycle” of Hans Krebs 1932 offers an explanation via the amino acid ornithine.
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