Comparison of serum copper and zinc in diabetics and non-diabetics subjects

Abstract

Diabetes mellitus, the most common chronic metabolic disorder affecting about 300 million people all over the world. It occurs due to impaired insulin secretion, impaired insulin action or both whereas Prediabetes is the initial stage before diabetes mellitus and characterized by impaired fasting glucose or impaired glucose tolerance. Type 2 diabetes mellitus is associated with increased metabolic processes and oxidative stress. The trace elements are important co-factor in these events. Thus, this study was conducted to compare serum copper, zinc in prediabetes, diabetics with normal controls.Institutional ethics committee permission was obtained prior to the study. Study included 71 prediabetes, 71 diabetics subjects and 71 controls between 40-60 years. Serum fasting blood sugar, glycated hemoglobin, copper, zinc was estimated. Statistical analysis was done using student t-test and Pearson’s correlation. p value <0.05 was said to be significant.Serum copper was significantly increased in diabetic (77.87±40.78) and serum zinc (128.05±20.87) was significantly decreased in diabetics compared to apparently healthy controls. (Copper =60.72±19.70, zinc =140.74±33.99), where as in prediabetics both copper and zinc level were increased compared to healthy subjects. : Serum copper and zinc have a role in diabetes thus supplementation of micronutrients may be essential to maintain the diabetic status.