Glycogen storage disease type 1a (Von Gierke's disease) is one of the
more common glycogen storage diseases (GSD). GSD 1a patients can have
severe idiopathic osteopenia, often beginning at a young age. Since ca
lcium tracer studies offer a sensitive probe of the bone microenvironm
ent and of calcium deposition, kinetics might be disturbed in patients
with GSD 1a. Plasma dilution kinetics obtained using the stable isoto
pe Ca-42 are shown in this paper to be quite different between GSD 1a
patients and age-matched controls. Comparison of kinetic parameters in
these two populations is made using a new binding site model for desc
ribing calcium dynamics at the plasma-bone interface. This model descr
ibes reversible binding of calcium ions to postulated short-term and l
one-term sites by a retention probability density function psi (t). Us
ing this analysis, adult GSD subjects exhibited a significant decrease
(P = 0.023) in the apparent half-life of a calcium ion on the longer-
term site compared with controls. The general theory of calcium tracer
dilution kinetics is then discussed in terms of a new model of short-
term calcium homeostasis recently proposed by Bronner and Stein [5].