Afridi Hassan Imran, Kazi Tasneem Gul, Kazi Naveed, Kandhro Ghulam Abbas, Baig Jameel Ahmed, Shah Abdul Qadir, Khan Sumaira, Kolachi Nida Fatima, Wadhwa Sham Kumar, Shah Faheem
Center of Excellence in Analytical Chemistry, University of Sindh, Jamshoro, Pakistan.
Clin Lab. 2011;57(7-8):559-74.
The most common cause of blindness in developing countries is vitamin A deficiency. The World Health Organization (WHO) estimates 13.8 million children have some degree of visual loss related to vitamin A deficiency. The causes of night blindness in children are multifactorial and particular consideration has been given to childhood nutritional deficiency, which is the most common problem found in underdeveloped countries. Such deficiency can result in physiological and pathological processes that in turn influence biological sample composition. Vitamin and mineral deficiency prevents more than two billion people from achieving their full intellectual and physical potential.
This study was designed to compare the levels of magnesium (Mg), calcium (Ca), potassium (K), and sodium (Na) in scalp hair, serum, blood, and urine of night blindness children in two age groups, (1-5) and (6-10) years, of both genders comparing them to sex- and age-matched controls. A microwave assisted wet acid digestion procedure was developed as a sample pretreatment for the determination of Mg, Ca, K, and Na in biological samples of children with night blindness. The proposed method was validated by using conventional wet digestion and certified reference samples of hair, serum, blood, and urine. The digests of all biological samples were analysed for Mg, Ca, K, and Na by flame atomic absorption spectrometry (FAAS) using an air/acetylene flame.
The results indicated significantly lower levels of Mg, Ca, and K in the biological samples (blood, serum, and scalp hair) of male and female children with night blindness and higher values of Na compared with control subjects of both genders.
These data present guidance to clinicians and other professionals investigating deficiency of essential mineral elements in biological samples (scalp hair, serum, and blood) of children with night blindness.
发展中国家失明的最常见原因是维生素A缺乏。世界卫生组织（WHO）估计，1380万儿童存在某种程度与维生素A缺乏相关的视力丧失。儿童夜盲的原因是多方面的，其中特别考虑了儿童营养缺乏问题，这是欠发达国家最常见的问题。这种缺乏会导致生理和病理过程，进而影响生物样本的组成。维生素和矿物质缺乏使超过20亿人无法充分发挥其智力和身体潜能。
本研究旨在比较两个年龄组（1 - 5岁和6 - 10岁）的夜盲儿童头皮毛发、血清、血液和尿液中镁（Mg）、钙（Ca）、钾（K）和钠（Na）的水平，并将其与性别和年龄匹配的对照组进行比较。开发了一种微波辅助湿酸消解程序，作为夜盲儿童生物样本中Mg、Ca、K和Na测定的样品预处理方法。通过使用传统湿消解方法以及毛发、血清、血液和尿液的标准参考样品对所提出的方法进行了验证。所有生物样本的消解产物通过空气/乙炔火焰原子吸收光谱法（FAAS）分析Mg、Ca、K和Na。
结果表明，与男女对照组相比，患有夜盲症的男女儿童生物样本（血液、血清和头皮毛发）中的Mg、Ca和K水平显著降低，而Na值更高。
这些数据为临床医生和其他专业人员在调查夜盲儿童生物样本（头皮毛发、血清和血液）中必需矿物质元素缺乏情况时提供了指导。
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