Diarrhea prevalence on days 3 , 5 , and 7 was lower in the zinc group .
The incidence of vomiting was significantly greater in the group that received zinc than in the control group .
CONCLUSIONS Oral zinc supplementation significantly decreases diarrhea duration and has a greater effect on malnourished children .
OBJECTIVE To up date the available evidence about zinc use for treating diarrhea in children and to assess its effect on the malnourished population , a subgroup that has not been fully explored in previous analyses .
Impact of zinc supplementation in malnourished children with acute watery diarrhoea.
A double-blind , r and omized , controlled clinical trial was conducted on 80 malnourished children with acute dehydrating diarrhoea to evaluate the efficacy of oral supplementation of zinc as an adjunct therapy to oral rehydration solution ( ORS ) . After decoding it was observed that 44 children received zinc sulphate ( 177 mg/kg/day in three divided doses equivalent to 40 mg elemental zinc ) in a syrup form and 36 children received only syrup placebo .  Clinical parameters and microbiological findings of stool sample s were comparable in the two groups at the time of enrollment . All the children ( 100 per cent ) in the zinc supplemented group and 32 ( 89 per cent ) children in the placebo group recovered within 5 days of hospitalization ( p = 0.04 ) . The zinc supplemented group had a significantly shorter duration of diarrhoea ( 70.4 + /- 10.0 vs. 103.4 + /- 17.1 h ; p = 0.0001 ) , passed less liquid stool ( 1.5 + /- 0.7 vs. 2.4 + /- 0.7 kg ; p=0.0001 ) , consumed less oral rehydration solution ( 2.5 + /- 1.0 vs. 3.6 + /- 0.8 litre ; p = 0.0001 ) and other liquids ( 867.0 + /- 466.1 vs. 1354.7 + /- 675.6 ml ; p = 0.0001 ) as compared to the placebo group . Our findings suggest that zinc supplementation as an adjunct therapy to ORS has beneficial effects on the clinical course of dehydrating acute diarrhoea
Diarrhea prevalence on days 3 , 5 , and 7 was lower in the zinc group .
The incidence of vomiting was significantly greater in the group that received zinc than in the control group .
CONCLUSIONS Oral zinc supplementation significantly decreases diarrhea duration and has a greater effect on malnourished children .
OBJECTIVE To up date the available evidence about zinc use for treating diarrhea in children and to assess its effect on the malnourished population , a subgroup that has not been fully explored in previous analyses .