Soil zinc is associated with serum zinc but not with linear growth of children in Ethiopia

To our knowledge, the relationships among soil zinc, serum zinc and children’s linear growth have not been studied geographically or at a national level in any country. We use data from the cross-sectional, nationally representative Ethiopian National Micronutrient Survey (ENMS) (n = 1776), which pr...

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Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores: Tessema, M., De Groote, H., Brouwer, I., Feskens, E., Belachew, T., Zerfu, D., Belay, A., Demelash, Yoseph, Gunaratna, N.S.
Tipo de recurso: artículo
Estado:Versión publicada
Fecha de publicación:2019
País:México
Institución:Centro Internacional de Mejoramiento de Maíz y Trigo
Repositorio:Repositorio Institucional de Publicaciones Multimedia del CIMMYT
OAI Identifier:oai:repository.cimmyt.org:10883/20089
Acceso en línea:https://hdl.handle.net/10883/20089
Access Level:acceso abierto
Palabra clave:AGRICULTURAL SCIENCES AND BIOTECHNOLOGY
Soil Zinc
Serum Zinc
Linear Growth
ZINC
SOIL FERTILITY
NUTRIENT INTAKE
GROWTH
PRESCHOOL CHILDREN
Descripción
Sumario:To our knowledge, the relationships among soil zinc, serum zinc and children’s linear growth have not been studied geographically or at a national level in any country. We use data from the cross-sectional, nationally representative Ethiopian National Micronutrient Survey (ENMS) (n = 1776), which provided anthropometric and serum zinc (n = 1171) data on children aged 6–59 months. Soil zinc levels were extracted for each child from the digital soil map of Ethiopia, developed by the Africa Soil Information Service. Children’s linear growth was computed using length/height and age converted into Z-scores for height-for-age. Multi-level mixed linear regression models were used for the analysis. Nationally, 28% of children aged 6–59 months were zinc deficient (24% when adjusted for inflammation) and 38% were stunted. Twenty percent of households in the ENMS were located on zinc-deficient soils. Soil zinc (in mg/kg) was positively associated with serum zinc (in µg/dL) (b = 0.9, p = 0.020) and weight-for-height-Z-score (b = 0.05, p = 0.045) but linear growth was not associated with soil zinc (p = 0.604) or serum zinc (p = 0.506) among Ethiopian preschool children. Intervention studies are needed to determine whether there are causal links between soil and human zinc status.