Cardiovascular Pharmacology: Open Access

Effectiveness of zinc supplementation as prophylaxis for stunting in children: Evidence based case report

15^th International Conference on Pediatrics and Pediatric Cardiology

February 19-20, 2018 | Paris, France

Rahmah Amran

Universitas Indonesia, Indonesia

Posters & Accepted Abstracts: Cardiovasc Pharm Open Access

Abstract:

Stunting is one of many health issues in children that have been a great burden for so many years. Stunting is highly associated with malnutrition. It can lead to a number of disorders, including defect of immune system, infections, and impairment of cognitive development which increase the rate of morbidity and mortality in patients with stunting and malnutrition. It has been postulated that zinc supplementation has a potential use for prevention of stunting in children. Unfortunately, the results were inconsistent over studies. Thus, this study was conducted to evaluate the effectiveness of zinc supplementation in preventing the incidence of stunting in children under two years old. The literature search was done through several scientific databases, including PubMed, Cochrane, EBSCO, and Science Direct. A total of two randomized controlled trial (RCT) were selected based on inclusion and exclusion criteria. Further assessment was done to evaluate its validity, importance and applicability using worksheet that is suitable for therapeutic studies. According to the articles assessed, it was found that there was no significant effect of zinc supplementation in preventing the occurrence of stunting in children. The increase of height in both control and experiment group were comparable. The conclusion is zinc supplementation given for children under two years old is considered to be clinically ineffective for the prevention of stunting.