Analysis of zinc and copper levels in very low birth weight infants using human milk additives: phase 1 trial findings

What Was Tested

Researchers studied Copper (Supplement) in this randomized controlled trial publication.

The aim of this study was to assess whether the micronutrients zinc and copper, provided by human milk additives, are sufficient for very low birth weight preterm infants.

Who Took Part

PubMed tags the participants as both men and women.

Participants were randomly assigned to two groups: intervention, Lioneo (received human milk with additive based on lyophilized human milk), n = 20, and control, HMCA (received human milk with commercial additive based on cow's milk protein), n = 20, and their serum levels of zinc and copper were measured on the first and twenty-first days.

How the Study Was Run

The researchers set it up as a randomized and double-blind study.

Random assignment meant chance, not the researchers, decided who got Copper (Supplement) and who got the comparison, which limits bias.

Blinding on both sides kept the participants and researchers unaware of who received Copper (Supplement).

A phase 1 randomized double-blind controlled trial was conducted with very low birth weight preterm infants.

This is a secondary analysis of copper and zinc.

Sixty-six newborns were part of the initial sample, with forty participating and reaching the final stage of the study.

What Was Measured

PubMed files the paper under topics including Copper, Infant, Very Low Birth Weight, Zinc, Milk, Human, Infant, Premature, Gestational Age and Infant Formula.

Author keywords: Human Milk, Newborn and Premature Infants.

What This Means in Plain Language

The paper is a randomized and double-blind study of Copper (Supplement).

Results are reported in around 5 sentences of the abstract; we leave them to the paper itself rather than summarise them.

The publication is from 2025 (Jornal de pediatria), a journal based in Brazil.

More context: the Copper (Supplement) compound page, all human trials.