Likoswe Blessings H, Lark R Murray, Phuka John, Maleta Kenneth, Joy Edward, Lowe Nicola M
Department of Nutrition and Dietetics, School of Global and Public Health, Kamuzu University of Health Sciences, Blantyre, Malawi.
School of Biosciences, University of Nottingham, Loughborough, United Kingdom.
Front Nutr. 2022 Jul 22;9:890209. doi: 10.3389/fnut.2022.890209. eCollection 2022.
Population-level assessment of zinc deficiency remains a challenge due to the lack of suitable biomarkers. Spot urinary zinc concentration (UZC) has the potential to provide information on population zinc status in large-scale surveys, but there is no established cut-off point indicating deficiency. A strong correlation between this biomarker and an established biomarker such as serum zinc concentration (SZC) in paired samples (i.e., from the same individual), could identify the thresholds indicating zinc deficiency. This study, therefore, aimed to regress spot UZC from school-aged children and women from the Malawi micronutrient survey with paired SZC data using a linear mixed-effects model. The nested variance components indicated no linear relationship between the UZC and SZC data, irrespective of adjustments for inflammation and hydration. Thresholds of urinary zinc excretion that have been suggested by expert panels were applied to the spot UZC data, as a analysis. The zinc deficiency prevalence estimates derived from these suggested thresholds were not similar to the estimates from the SZC data, and further research is required to understand whether spot UZC can still provide useful information in population zinc assessment.
由于缺乏合适的生物标志物，对锌缺乏进行人群水平的评估仍然是一项挑战。随机尿锌浓度（UZC）有潜力在大规模调查中提供有关人群锌状况的信息，但尚无确定的表明缺乏的临界值。在配对样本（即来自同一个体）中，这种生物标志物与一种既定的生物标志物（如血清锌浓度，SZC）之间的强相关性，可以确定表明锌缺乏的阈值。因此，本研究旨在使用线性混合效应模型，对马拉维微量营养素调查中在校儿童和妇女的随机UZC与配对的SZC数据进行回归分析。嵌套方差成分表明，无论对炎症和水合作用进行何种调整，UZC和SZC数据之间均无线性关系。作为一种分析方法，专家小组建议的尿锌排泄阈值被应用于随机UZC数据。从这些建议阈值得出的锌缺乏患病率估计值与SZC数据的估计值不相似，因此需要进一步研究以了解随机UZC在人群锌评估中是否仍能提供有用信息。
