Plasma zinc concentrations are depressed during the acute phase response in children with falciparum malaria.

What Was Tested

This randomized controlled trial looks at Antimalarials.

The researchers carried out an observational cohort study in 689 children enrolled in a randomized trial of zinc supplementation during acute falciparum malaria in order to evaluate the relation between plasma zinc concentration and the acute phase response.

Why It Was Studied

Plasma concentrations of some micronutrients are altered in the setting of acute infectious or inflammatory stress.

Previous studies have provided conflicting evidence concerning the extent and direction of changes in plasma zinc concentrations during the acute phase response.

Who Took Part

The abstract describes 689 children taking part.

PubMed indexes the participants as infants and young children, both men and women.

How the Study Was Run

In design terms this was a randomized and placebo-controlled study.

Because people in this Antimalarials study were split into groups at random, differences between the groups are less likely to reflect who happened to join each one.

Some children received a placebo instead of Antimalarials, giving a reference point.

Plasma zinc was measured by atomic absorption spectrophotometry.

What Was Measured

Topics PubMed links to this paper include Antimalarials, Chloroquine, Dietary Supplements, Malaria, Falciparum and Zinc.

What This Means in Plain Language

The paper is a randomized and placebo-controlled study of Antimalarials in 689 children.

With several hundred people or more, it is a fairly large study for this kind of research.

The publication is from 2005 (The Journal of nutrition), a journal based in United States.

More context: all human trials.