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A 21-month-old girl with physical and mental retardation is described. She excreted an increased amount of lysine in urine but no excessive quantities of arginine, ornithine, or cystine. Serum level of lysine was found to be low but the levels of the other amino acids were within normal limits. The endogenous renal clearance rates of amino acids showed a marked high value of lysine and normal values of the other dibasic amino acids. Oral loading test of amino acids revealed an impaired absorption of lysine and normal absorption of arginine, ornithine, and cystine in the intestine. These results indicate a specific defect in transport of lysine in the intestine as well as in the renal tubule.

Emotional stability of insulin‐dependent diabetics is closely related to their metabolic control. We have already presented the psychological features of diabetic children at the 5 th International Beilinson Symposium. These results indicate that psychological problems are usually interactions with the patient's family. Family troubles derived from impaired interrelation are significant. From these points of view, counselling with the family based on a proper understanding of their relationship is absolutely necessary. We have had regular meetings for mothers with diabetic children in our clinic to discuss their psychological troubles. In this study we examined the frequency of poorly controlled patients in our clinic and analyzed the nature of their problems. We further summarized the opinion of family members which had been discussed in the above‐mentioned meeting. Frequency of constantly poorly controlled patient was 8.1% (3/37) in male and 16.3% (8/49) in female. We report on our method' of approach to them.