Abstract
Zinc (Zn) has a role in the acute phase response to infection helping to boost the body's immune response through a defense cascade. The objective was a trial to assess the effect of Zn supplemented yoghurt, when given with routine hospital treatment, on reducing treatment failure, length of hospital stay, and duration of symptoms of pneumonia in children less than five years old.45 children suffered from acute severe pneumonia were subjected to complete physical exam and randomized to receive either Zn supplemented yoghurt 20 mg Zn-acetate “= 6 mg Zn element” (group-B, n=15) or 20 mg Zn element “= 66 mg Zn-acetate” (group-C, n=15) per 240 ml yoghurt divided into 2 or 4 meals/day according to child appetite) or placebo (group-A, n=15) and followed up until they were discharged from the hospital.Serum Zn, hemoglobin percent and C-Reactive Protein were measured once on admission (before supplementation) for all and serum Zn on discharge (after supplementation) for group-B and group-C only. The results revealed that there was no statistical significant difference between the 3 manufactured zinc-supplemented yoghurt samples as regard chemical and physical properties and no statistical significant difference between the 3 groups as regards age, sex, length/height, weight, nutritional history, clinical picture and serum Zn on admission. There was no mortality in the 3 groups. Serum Zn was significantly increased in group-B & group-C on discharge while hospital days for improvement and total hospital stay were shorter in group-B and group-C than placebo. Hospital day for improvement in group-A is significantly longer than that of group-B and highly significantly than in group-C while the total hospital days in group-A is highly significantly longer than that of group-C only. There was no significant negative correlation between serum Zn after and hospital days for improvement and a significant one with total hospital days. Conclusively, from these results it could be concluded that Zn-supplemented yoghurt decreases the duration of hospital stay, and duration of symptoms of severe pneumonia in best treatment dose of 6mg/day and more effectively in dose of 20 mg/day of Zn as nutrient element.
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