Oral solutions for gastroenteritis--optimal glucose concentration.

About half of all infants and toddlers with infectious diarrhoea of probable virus aetiology and treated with an oral rehydration solution containing 4.6% glucose had faecal glucose greater than or equal to 0.3%. In most of them the faecal concentration of glucose was higher than 0.50%. From the physiological point of view, it seems wise to decrease the glucose concentration substantially from that so often recommended for the treatment of diarrhoea in developed countries.