Save the children: Trials show zinc supplementation can reduce child mortality

Doctors remind parents that supplements are not a substitute for a balanced diet.

KARACHI:

Zinc supplements reduce diarrhoea and other infections in malnourished children, according to a recent study published in the health journal, Cochrane.

Providing zinc supplements to malnourished children can help reduce child mortality rates as a large number of these deaths are caused due to complications arising from diarrhoea and other symptoms associated with malnourishment.

“It must be remembered that these supplements are not a substitute for a well-balanced diet,” reminded Professor Zulifiqar Bhutta, of the Centre of Excellence in Women and Child Health, Aga Khan University (AKU), Karachi and the Sick Kids Centre for Global Child Health, Toronto, Canada. “In countries where zinc deficiency is common among children, these supplements may help reduce deaths among children and related disorders temporarily.”

Zinc deficiency is common in Pakistan, Southeast Asia, sub-Saharan Africa and parts of Latin America.

The authors of the report, including Dr Zulfiqar Bhutta and Sohni Dean of the AKU, were interested in whether zinc supplements could reduce childhood deaths and diseases, and help sustain growth among these children. For the purpose of the report, they reviewed data from 80 trials, involving 205,401 children aged between six months to 12 years, mostly from low and middle-income countries. In Pakistan, the trials were conducted in Bilal Colony, Karachi, and Matiari in Sindh.

The findings of the report indicate that those children who were given zinc supplements were less to suffer from bouts of diarrhoea. When the researchers looked at indicators of growth, they found that the children who had been on zinc were slightly taller at the end of the trial period than their counterparts.

Overall, the report suggests that zinc supplementation could benefit children as part of wider programmes to address public health and nutrition challenges in these countries. In Pakistan, zinc needs to be part of diarrhoea treatment programmes countrywide. “While the combination of zinc and ORS and their effectiveness in treating diarrhoea are well known, this combination is not being widely used,” said Dr Aamer Imdad who had worked on this study while at AKU.

It must be understood, however, that administering zinc alone is insufficient and healthy eating is far more important for growth, remarked the researchers. “Eating foods with balanced energy and protein and multiple micronutrients would probably have a larger effect for many malnourished children,” said Evan Mayo-Wilson, the lead author based at the Johns Hopkins University Bloomberg School of Public Health in Baltimore, Maryland.

Published in The Express Tribune, May 16^th, 2014.