Impact of zinc supplementation in malnourished children with acute watery diarrhoea

A double-blind, randomized, controlled clinical trial was conducted on 80 m alnourished children with acute dehydrating diarrhoea to evaluate the effic acy of oral supplementation of zinc as an adjunct therapy to oral rehydrati on solution (ORS). After decoding it was observed that 44 children received zinc sulphate (177 mg/kg/day in three divided doses equivalent to 40 mg el emental zinc) in a syrup form and 36 children received only syrup placebo. Clinical parameters and microbiological findings of stool samples were comp arable in the two groups at the time of enrolment, All the children (100 pe r cent) in the zinc supplemented group and 32 (89 per cent) children in the placebo group recovered within 5 days of hospitalization (p = 0.04). The z inc supplemented group had a significantly shorter duration of diarrhoea (7 0.4 +/- 10.0 vs. 103.4 +/- 17.1 h; p = 0.0001), passed less liquid stool (1 .5 +/- 0.7 vs. 2.4 +/- 0.7 kg; p = 0.0001), consumed less oral rehydration solution (2.5 +/- 1.0 vs. 3.6 +/- 0.8 litre; p = 0.0001) and other liquids (867.0 +/- 466.1 vs. 1354.7 +/- 675.6 ml; p = 0.0001) as compared to the pl acebo group. Our findings suggest that zinc supplementation as an adjunct t herapy to ORS has beneficial effects on the clinical course of dehydrating acute diarrhoea.