The Relationship Between The Age and Sex and The Plasma Zinc and Cupper Level in Type 2 Diabetes Mellitus Patients

Abstract

The study was carried out in patients with Type II Diabetes Mellitus (DM) in order to investigate two important elements in serum levels of zinc (Zn) and copper (Cu). This study included 112 diabetic patients, In addition, 210 healthy volunteers were taken as the control group.The serum Zn and Cu levels were determined, after dilution of samples with atomic absorption spectrophotometry (AAS). The obtained results were evalueted with respect to according to sex and age groups. Serum Zn levels significantly lower in the diabetics patients than controls as p<0.001. Serum Cu levels were found to higher in the diabetics (p<0.001). Similar results were found when the subjects were evaluated in terms of age groups. However, in both the patient and control group (p>0.05). Conversely, both the female controls (p<0.001) and female diabetics (p<0.005) had higher serum Cu levels than those of the male ones. In addition in each age group, female subjects had higher serum Cu levels than those of the male subjects both in the control and patient groups. Serum Cu levels were found to be increased with age and there was a significant correlation between the age and copper values (p<0.01). As a result serum Zn levels of diabetic patients were found to be lower than that of healty people contradictory to serum Cu levels which were found to be higher in diabetics. The change in Zn and Cu levels in diabetics show that these elements are important in occurence of diabetes mellitus.