[Malabsorption of carbohydrates in children (author's transl)]

Physiological bases of digestion and absorption of carbohydrates are reviewed, as a preliminary step, in order to draw a general scheme of its patholophysiology. Clasification of different types of carbohydrate malabsorption is presented. Various exploration methods are discussed in terms of autors' own experiences. Relationship between a sugar screening test, faecal lactic acid contents and a simplified lactose tolerance test, is described in detail. Systematic diagnoses of these diseases are established. Different clinical pictures are reviewed. It is not yet well defined if a starch malabsorption can be caused by either a primary or secondary duodenal amylase deficiency. The clinical forms of congenital sucrose-isomaltose intolerance may be more attenuated than its classical form; incertain cases, secondary sucrose intolerance may also be present due to mucosa anatomic lesions. Maltose malabsorption has no clinical implications. As compared to other alpha-glycosidades, the trehalase activity has been not more affected by not using trehalose in feeding. Primary congenital lactase deficiency is not frequent, whereas secondary forms as much more usual and appear, in primary malabsorption syndromes and in the coeliac disease, very often along with clinical tolerance to lactose. In Spain, lactose nonabsorbers in 16.5% for adults 11.2% for adolescents and 18.3% for children, meaning, that it is being favored by environmental factors in the latter. The unspecified sugar malabsorption during the child's first year is still the most frequent cause of carbohydrate intolerance in children and, although certain progress has been achieved in its diagnosis and therapy, its pathogenic mechanism is not satisfactorily known yet.