Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
Randomized Controlled Trial
. 2009 May 5:7:22.
doi: 10.1186/1741-7015-7-22.

Zinc and copper supplementation in acute diarrhea in children: a double-blind randomized controlled trial

Archana Patel  1 , Michael J Dibley, Manju Mamtani, Neetu Badhoniya, Hemant Kulkarni
Affiliations
Randomized Controlled Trial

Zinc and copper supplementation in acute diarrhea in children: a double-blind randomized controlled trial

Archana Patel et al. BMC Med. .

Abstract

Background: Diarrhea causes an estimated 2.5 million child deaths in developing countries each year, 35% of which are due to acute diarrhea. Zinc and copper stores in the body are known to be depleted during acute diarrhea. Our objectives were to evaluate the efficacy of zinc and copper supplementation when given with standard treatment to children with acute watery or bloody diarrhea.

Methods: We conducted a double-blind randomized controlled clinical trial in the Department of Pediatrics at Indira Gandhi Government Medical College Nagpur, India. Eight hundred and eight children aged 6 months to 59 months with acute diarrhea were individually randomized to placebo (Pl), zinc (Zn) only, and zinc and copper (Zn+Cu) together with standard treatment for acute diarrhea.

Results: The mean duration of diarrhea from enrollment and the mean stool weight during hospital stay were 63.7 hours and 940 grams, respectively, and there were no significant differences in the adjusted means across treatment groups. Similarly, the adjusted means of the amount of oral rehydration solution or intravenous fluids used, the proportion of participants with diarrhea more than 7 days from onset, and the severity of diarrhea indicated by more than three episodes of some dehydration or any episode of severe dehydration after enrollment, did not differ across the three groups.

Conclusion: The expected beneficial effects of zinc supplementation for acute diarrhea were not observed. Therapeutic Zn or Zn and Cu supplementation may not have a universal beneficial impact on the duration of acute diarrhea in children.

PubMed Disclaimer

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Flowchart.
Figure 2
Figure 2
The Kaplan-Meier curves for post enrolment duration of diarrhea in three groups.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

References

    1. Kosek M, Bern C, Guerrant RL. The global burden of diarrhoeal disease, as estimated from studies published between 1992 and 2000. Bull World Health Organ. 2003;81:197–204. - PMC - PubMed
    1. Arora R, Kulshreshtha S, Mohan G, Singh M, Sharma P. Estimation of serum zinc and copper in children with acute diarrhea. Biol Trace Elem Res. 2006;114:121–126. doi: 10.1385/BTER:114:1:121. - DOI - PubMed
    1. Tomkins A, Behrens R, Roy S. The role of zinc and vitamin A deficiency in diarrhoeal syndromes in developing countries. Proc Nutr Soc. 1993;52:131–142. doi: 10.1079/PNS19930045. - DOI - PubMed
    1. Bhutta ZA, Bird SM, Black RE, Brown KH, Gardner JM, Hidayat A, Khatun F, Martorell R, Ninh NX, Penny ME, Rosado JL, Roy SK, Ruel M, Sazawal S, Shankar A. Therapeutic effects of oral zinc in acute and persistent diarrhea in children in developing countries: pooled analysis of randomized controlled trials. Am J Clin Nutr. 2000;72:1516–1522. - PubMed
    1. Lazzerini M, Ronfani L. Oral zinc for treating diarrhoea in children. Cochrane Database Syst Rev. 2008;3:CD005436. DOI: 10.1002/14651858.CD005436.pub2. - PubMed

Publication types