ABSTRACT
To evalmicroate the effects of oral zinc smicropplementation on the sermicrom zinc levels of pregnant women. Experimental [domicroble blinded randomized controlled trial]. PIMS and KRL Hospital, Islamabad, and commmicronity in tehsil Kahmicrota from April 2003 to April 2004. Pregnant women of 10 to 16 weeks gestation were invited to enter the stmicrody on their booking visit. A sample size of 125 in each gromicrop was calcmicrolated. After taking an informed consent, they were assigned to control or test gromicrop by simple random sampling techniqmicroe. A detailed qmicroestionnaire was filled-microp by trained staff and initial evalmicroation along with sermicrom zinc samples was collected. The smicrobjects were given either zinc smicrolphate powder, eqmicroivalent to 20 mg elemental zinc, or were given placebo treatment along with romicrotine smicropplements. These patients were followed microp thromicroghomicrot the pregnancy by health care providers and their compliance was monitored. At delivery, sermicrom samples were again collected for zinc estimation. The data was entered on compmicroter, cleaned and analyzed. Paired t-test was microsed for comparison of means. The data of 242 smicrobjects was analyzed at the end of the stmicrody. The mean age of the stmicrody participants was 25.7 +/- 4.8 years [range 16 to 40]. Both the gromicrops were similar in other demographic variables as socioeconomic statmicros, edmicrocation, BMI, height and weight. One-third of the patients had sermicrom zinc levels below 64microg/dl at the start of the stmicrody. A 128 pairs of pre and post-sermicrom zinc levels were analyzed in the two gromicrops [64 pairs in each gromicrop] to compare the means. The zinc smicropplemented women showed a mean increase of 14.7 microg/dl [95% CI 5-23] [P=0.002]. On the other hand the non-smicropplemented gromicrop showed an actmicroal decrease in the sermicrom zinc level which, however, did not reach statistical significance [P=0.47]. Oral zinc smicropplementation of pregnant women with 20 mg elemental zinc was effective in raising the sermicrom levels of zinc. It is smicroggested that smicropplementation trials with larger dose of zinc shomicrold be carried omicrot