Relationship between Zink and Anaemica in Chronic Haemodialysis Patients

Abstract

End stage renal disease (ESRD) patients receiving haemodialysis (HD) are frequently associated with anaemia. Zinc, being an important nutrient for haemoglobin synthesis, was studied for it's effect, if any, on renal disease associated anaemia among patients in the HD unit of BSMMU (formerly IPGMR), Dhaka. Surprisingly, a tow plasma zinc level and a high corpuscular (RBC) zinc level was observed. All of our subjects were found anaemic. A significant correlation was observed between plasma zinc level on one hand and haemoglobin level as well as RBC counts on the other hand. There are several suggestions for this low plasma and high corpuscular zinc level. However, this altered zinc level in plasma and red blood corpuscles might interfere with haemoglobin synthesis and might be one of the factors for renal disease associated anaemia.

The beneficial effect of dietary zinc supplementation on anaemia and immunosuppression in Trypanosoma brucei infected rats

“…Secondly, zinc acts to stabilise proteins which may otherwise react with highly unstable minerals, particularly iron and copper, to form free radicals. Zinc deficiency has been found to be associated with anaemia, increased erythrocyte fragility, as well as some other bodily functional abnormalities (Akhtar et al, 2003;Jaffe and Lawrence, 2013). Therefore, it is expected that zinc supplementation would reduce oxidative stress, prolong RBC survival, and thus maintain high PCV and haemoglobin levels.…”

“…Increase in PCV values and haemoglobin concentrations were recorded before infection. Zinc plays an important role in haemoglobin synthesis by activating delt-aminolaevutinic acid (ALA) dehydrogenase, an enzyme essential for the formation of porphobilinogen from two ALA molecules (Akhtar et al, 2003;Jaffe and Lawrence, 2013). Also, the increase in PCV values can be attributed to the anti-oxidative effect of zinc.…”