Calcium homeostasis in mentally handicapped epileptic patients

Three groups of subjects have been studied to evaluate the role of long term hospitalization and chronic anti-epileptic therapy on calcium metabolism. The first group consisted of 32 epileptic patients, randomly selected from a population of inpatients in a hospital for the mentally handicapped, receiving various combinations of anti-epileptic drugs for at least 3 years. The second group was made up of 32 non-epileptic residents of the same hospital, individually matched for age and sex with epileptic patients and who had not received any anti-epileptic drugs in the last 3 years. The third group of 22 normal subjects was randomly selected from the staff of the University Hospital of Wales, matched for age and sex against the epileptic group, who had not received any anti-epileptic medication within the last 3 years. None of the subjects received any drugs (except anti-epileptic drugs) known to have effect on calcium metabolism. Significant differences in the serum levels of the total calcium, ionised calcium, total alkaline phosphatase and its liver iso-enzyme were seen. Serum total alkaline phosphatase and its liver iso-enzyme were significantly elevated in the epileptic group, showing the effect of anti-epileptic drugs. On the other hand serum total calcium was significantly lower in both residential groups compared to the normal population, epileptics being lower than non-epileptics showing the combined effect of hospitalization and anti-epileptic drugs. No significant difference was detected among the groups in the serum concentration of the bone alkaline phosphatase iso-enzyme.