ABSTRACT
A comprehensive evaluation of zinc and iron nutritional status was conducted in 203 children aged 2-7 years with anorexia. 147 of them took 3-7 mg of zinc sulfate?kg-1?d-1 for 60 days. The purpose of the study were to explore the relationship between zinc supplementation and the nutritional status of iron.Nutritional survey by 3-day-record method pre-and post zinc treatment showed that the average intakes of energy, protein, zinc, iron before treatment were 994kcal/d, 30.8g/d, 4.9mg/d, 7.6mg/d and were only 71%, 68%, 49%, 76% of RDA respectively. After treatment they reached 91%, 89%, 70%, 113% of RDA.There were significant positive correlations between zinc contents in serum or hair and hemoglobin (HB) or serum ferritin (SF) of the children with anorexia. After administration of zinc , the iron status of the children improved in some and fell in others. There were significant differences in some indices between the two groups before treatment. By stepwise discriminant analysis, a discriminant equation was obtained;Y = 3.591 - 0.175X1- 0.0152X2- 0.144X3+ 0.706X4(X1 = age, X2 = hair zinc,X3 = Hb, X4 = growth)If Y0, iron status may improve.