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The American journal of clinical nutrition, 2000

Zinc deficiency is prevalent in children in developing countries. Supplemental zinc provides therapeutic benefits in diarrhea. We sought to measure the effect of supplemental zinc given with oral rehydration therapy during recovery from acute or persistent diarrhea. We conducted pooled analyses including all available published and unpublished randomized controlled trials of the effects of supplementary oral zinc in children aged <5 y with acute or persistent diarrhea. We used Cox survival regression analysis to evaluate the overall effect of zinc on continuation of diarrhea and possible differential effects in subgroups divided by sex, age, weight-for-height, and initial plasma zinc concentration. Dichotomous outcomes were analyzed by logistic regression. To assess the effects of excluding studies without original data from the pooled analyses, effect-size was estimated for all studies by using random-effects models. Zinc-supplemented children had a 15% lower probability of cont...

Pakistan BioMedical Journal, 2021

According to World Health Organization (WHO) approximately four million children less than 5 years of age in Asia, Africa, and Latin America die annually from diarrhea; and 80% of these deaths occur in the first year of life. Objective: To see how a zinc supplement influences the severity of acute diarrhea in children under the age of five. Methods: In current study, we analyze the effect of zinc on diarrheal patients. Zinc was randomly assigned to diarrheal patients in different concentration 5 mg, 10 mg, 15 mg and 20 mg. There were two groups in our study, treatment and control group. Results: The results are presented in the form of descriptive and inferential statistics. In T1 (Treatment Group) number of Diarrhea patients < 1 Year of age were 16, 2-4 years of age were 45, 4-5 years of age and maximum no of patients in T1 < 2 year of age were 57. Number of male patients were 84 while female patients were 67 in T1.In T2 (Control Group) number of male patients were 92 while f...

Bangladesh Journal of Medical Science

Background: Nearly 1.7 million children suffer from diarrhoea and around 760,000 die each year. The high prevalence of diarrhoea in the developing countries is closely related to lack of safe drinking water, inadequate sanitation and hygiene, and poor health and nutritional status. These environmental conditions facilitate the spread of infectious disease easily. The great morbidity and mortality of this preventable and treatable disease raise concern on how to save children from this fatal disease by improving management of diarrhoea. Several studies suggest that zinc deficiency contribute towards high morbidity and mortality in diarrhoea. Further, there is an area of uncertainty regarding how significant zinc supplementation will help to reduce the duration and severity of diarrhoea in children compared to the diarrhoea management without zinc? Objective: To critically analyse the current evidences of zinc supplementation in diarrhoea. Data Sources: Keywords searching through MEDL...

Background: Zinc deficiency is prevalent in children in developing countries. Supplemental zinc provides therapeutic benefits in diarrhea. Objective: We sought to measure the effect of supplemental zinc given with oral rehydration therapy during recovery from acute or persistent diarrhea. Design: We conducted pooled analyses including all available published and unpublished randomized controlled trials of the effects of supplementary oral zinc in children aged < 5 y with acute or persistent diarrhea. We used Cox survival regression analysis to evaluate the overall effect of zinc on continuation of diarrhea and possible differential effects in subgroups divided by sex, age, weight-for-height, and initial plasma zinc concentration. Dichotomous outcomes were analyzed by logistic regression. To assess the effects of excluding studies without original data from the pooled analyses, effect-size was estimated for all studies by using random-effects models. Results: Zinc-supplemented children had a 15% lower probability of continuing diarrhea on a given day (95% CI: 5%, 24%) in the acute-diarrhea trials and a 24% lower probability of continuing diarrhea (95% CI: 9%, 37%) and a 42% lower rate of treatment failure or death (95% CI: 10%, 63%) in the persistentdiarrhea trials. In none of the subgroup analyses were the 2 subgroups of each pair significantly different from each other; however, in persistent diarrhea there tended to be a greater effect in subjects aged < 12 mo, who were male, or who had wasting or lower baseline plasma zinc concentrations. Conclusion: Zinc supplementation reduces the duration and severity of acute and persistent diarrhea.

Gastroenterology Research, 2009

Background: To test the hypothesis that daily supplementation of zinc has any effect on clinical course of acute diarrhea, i.e. frequency of stool, on stool amount and duration of acute diarrhea. Methods: In a randomized double blind placebo controlled trial, 117 children aged 6 months to 59 months in a medical college hospital, with acute diarrhea of less than 14 days were assigned by permuted block design 1:1 to receive intervention of zinc supplemented syrup (n = 60) or placebo syrup (n = 57). Results: Baseline characteristics were similar in both the groups. Mean age in zinc supplemented group was 22.14 ± 16.68 months and in placebo group 25.66 ± 17.02 months. Reduction in stool frequency per day was found 62% in zinc supplemented group and 26% reduction was found in placebo supplemented group with obvious difference of 36% between these two groups from day 1 to day 3 and day 5, which was found statistically highly significant. Similarly, significant difference was observed for reduction in amount of stool per day from day 1 to day 3 and day 5 with obvious difference of 45% between the study groups. Conclusions: Oral zinc administration in acute diarrhea reduces the frequency of diarrhea and output of stool by changing the natural course of acute diarrheal disease, causes early normalization of stool consistency, early recovery and decreases total duration of hospital stay. Zinc supplementation is simple, acceptable and affordable strategy which should be considered in management of acute diarrhea.

BMJ Paediatrics Open

BackgroundDiarrhoea-associated mortality and morbidity are highest in infants and young children in low-income and middle-income countries (LMICs). Zinc supplementation during acute diarrhoea has been shown to reduce the duration of illness and the risk of persistent diarrhoea. However, vomiting with zinc supplementation is a common side effect that may interfere with compliance and programmatic scale-up, and may be related to the dose prescribed.Methods/designThe Zinc Therapeutic Dose Trial (ZTDT) is a two-centre (Tanzania and India), three-arm randomised, double-blind controlled non-inferiority trial. Children 6–59 months of age with acute diarrhoea are eligible to participate. Enrolled children (1500 per arm; 4500 total) will be randomly allocated to receive 5, 10 or 20 mg of zinc sulfate daily for 14 days and will be followed up for 60 days after enrolment. All children will receive WHO/Unicef Integrated Management of Childhood Illness standard of care (oral or intravenous rehyd...

Sultan Qaboos University medical journal, 2007

To study the impact of zinc administration on the morbidity and mortality attributed to diarrhoea among children less than 5 years old. The study design was a randomized double blinded controlled clinical trial, held at Elsabeen Hospital for Maternity and Childhood, Sana&#39;a, Yemen. The study was conducted during the period September 2005 to October 2006 on 180 children less than 5 years old with acute diarrhoeal episodes. They were randomly allocated to two groups; one of them received a placebo and the other received zinc acetate syrup for 14 days. Both groups were followed up for 2 months. ZINC WAS ABLE TO DECREASE THE MEAN NUMBER OF DIARRHOEAL EPISODES: 1.39 in the intervention group versus 2.59 in the control group. It also reduced the mean frequency of stools per day in each attack (3.57 in the intervention group versus 5.47 in the control group) and the volume of stool in each attack during the follow-up period. Moreover, zinc was significantly more palatable. We can conclu...

2010

Intervention trials have shown that zinc is efficacious in treating acute diarrhea in children of developing countries. In a randomized, placebo-controlled trial, we assessed the effectiveness and efficacy of giving 3 Recommended Daily Allowances of elemental zinc to 6-to 35-month-old children with acute diarrhea. Methods. Seventeen hundred ninety-two cases of acute diarrhea in Nepalese children were randomized to 4 study groups. Three groups were blinded and the children supplemented daily by field workers with placebo syrup, zinc syrup, or zinc syrup and a massive dose of vitamin A at enrollment. The fourth group was open and the caretaker gave the children zinc syrup daily. Daywise information on morbidity was obtained by household visits every fifth day. Results. The relative hazards for termination of diarrhea were 26% (95% confidence interval [CI]: 8%, 46%), 21% (95% CI: 4%, 38%), and 19% (95% CI: 2%, 40%) higher in the zinc, zinc-vitamin A, and zinc-caretaker groups, respectively, than in the placebo group. The relative risks of prolonged diarrhea (duration >7 days) in these groups were 0.57 (95% CI: 0.38, 0.86), 0.53 (95% CI: 0.35, 0.81), and 0.55 (0.37, 0.84); zinc accordingly reduced the risk of prolonged diarrhea with 43% to 47%. Five percent and 5.1% of all syrup administrations were followed by regurgitation in the zinc and zinc-vitamin A group, respectively, whereas this occurred after only 1.3% of placebo administrations. Vomiting during diarrhea was also more common in children receiving zinc. Conclusions. Three Recommended Daily Allowances of zinc given daily by caretakers or by field workers substantially reduced the duration of diarrhea. The effect of zinc was not dependent on or enhanced by concomitant vitamin A administration. Pediatrics 2002;109:898-903; zinc, vitamin A, acute diarrhea, young children, randomized placebo controlled trial, effectiveness, Nepal, treatment.

Journal of Evolution of medical and Dental Sciences, 2015

BACKGROUND: Diarrhoea is one of the leading causes of morbidity and mortality affecting children in developing countries. We studied the efficacy of zinc therapy in reducing the duration of diarrhoea. MATERIALS AND METHODS: A double-blinded randomized control study was done in 100 children between age groups 1 month to 5 years having acute diarrhoea. These children were randomly divided into 2 groups. Group 1 received oral supplementation of 20mg zinc and ORS from day one of treatment while group 2 received only ORS therapy. Children who received zinc or antibiotics prior to the study were excluded. Clinical profile of children like age, gender, nutritional status and dehydration level was have been taken into consideration. The outcome of the study was assessed by comparing the mean number of watery stools of both the groups during the course of therapy. RESULTS: Out of 100 children based in the study 50 children in group 1 who received oral zinc supplementation showed a 36% reduction in duration of diarrhoea (6.22 days vs. 8.26 days). CONCLUSION: Zinc supplementation help reduce the duration of acute diarrhoea.

Tropical Medicine & International Health, 2010

objectives To determine whether continuing with zinc supplementation after zinc treatment (ZT) of an acute diarrhoea episode will result in additional clinical benefits beyond ZT alone.