ZINC STATUS BY ESTIMATING HAIR AND SERUM ZINC IN SEVERELY MALNOURISHED BANGLADESHI CHILDREN

Abstract

F56 Objective: To determine the zinc status in severely malnourished Bangladeshi children by estimating serum and corresponding hair zinc and to find how it is related with age, sex and various anthropometric measurements of the body. Design: Case control study. Subject & Methods: Forty Seven severely malnourished children from age 6 months to 60 months taken as active cases. Twenty four well nourished children from paediatric out patient of same age group were taken as control. Serum and corresponding hair zinc were estimated by Flame atomic absorption spectrophotometry. Main out come measures: Difference between active case and control regarding zinc concentration in serum and hair. Pattern of zinc status according to various age groups, sex, weight for age, weight for height and height for age. Correlation of serum zinc with that of hair zinc. Results: Results obtained from multivariate logistic procedure showed that serum zinc was significantly low (negative association with (PE= 2.933, p=0.0016) in PEM and negatively but not significantly associated with hair zinc (PE=0.006. p=0.128). However combined serum zinc and hair zinc were found to have significantly negative association with PEM (p=0.002 and 0.086 respectively). While serum zinc showed inverse relationship with increasing age groups, hair zinc showed significantly positive relationship (r=.3440, p<.001). Both serum zinc and hair zinc maintained positive correlationship with weight for age (r=0.4006. p<.001 and r=.2887 p<.01 respectively) and height for age (r=.296, p<.05 and r=.314, p<.05 respectively). Zinc showed negative correlation with hair Zinc (r=.0771, p=.489). Conclusions: Considering significantly low zinc status in PEM routine zinc supplement should be given to PEM patients. Combined estimation of serum and hair zinc will probably provide more reliable picture of zinc status of PEM patients.