Weismann K, Wanscher B, Krakauer R
Acta Derm Venereol. 1978;58(2):157-61.
A geriatric population comprising 585 inhabitants of an institution for the aged was studied. Twenty-six persons with a mean age of 82 years were selected because of skin manifestations suggestive of chronic zinc deficiency. In 10 of the patients a subnormal plasma zinc level was found. This hypozincaemic group underwent a 4 week trial with zinc sulphate tablets, 0.6 g daily. The therapy failed to alleviate the skin condition in any of the patients, thus indicating that the changes were not caused by zinc deficiency. In the hypozincaemic group, plasma albumin was subnormal in all patients and significantly lower than in the normozincaemic subjects. The correlation between plasma zinc and plasma albumin levels in all 34 patients studied was highly significant (rs = 0.69, p less than 0.001). As plasma albumin tends to fall to subnormal concentrations with age, this explains why plasma zinc may be low in the elderly without indicating a state of zinc deficiency. After 2 and 4 weeks' zinc therapy, the mean plasma zinc concentration of the hypozincaemic group rose significantly from 9.5 to 17.6 and 23.4 mumol/1. This increase is higher than the rise observed in younger patients receiving an identical zinc sulphate dosage.
对一家养老院的585名老年居民进行了研究。选取了26名平均年龄为82岁、有提示慢性锌缺乏的皮肤表现的人。在10名患者中发现血浆锌水平低于正常。这个低锌血症组进行了为期4周的硫酸锌片试验，每日0.6克。该治疗未能缓解任何一名患者的皮肤状况，因此表明这些变化不是由锌缺乏引起的。在低锌血症组中，所有患者的血浆白蛋白均低于正常，且显著低于正常锌血症受试者。在研究的所有34名患者中，血浆锌与血浆白蛋白水平之间的相关性非常显著（rs = 0.69，p < 0.001）。由于血浆白蛋白往往会随着年龄增长降至低于正常的浓度，这就解释了为什么老年人的血浆锌可能较低而不表明存在锌缺乏状态。经过2周和4周的锌治疗后，低锌血症组的平均血浆锌浓度从9.5显著升至17.6和23.4 μmol/L。这种升高高于接受相同硫酸锌剂量的年轻患者中观察到的升高。
