ORIGINAL ARTICLES   

Panminerva Medica 2000 December;42(4):273-7

Copyright © 2009 EDIZIONI MINERVA MEDICA

language: English

Blood zinc, copper and magnesium in aging. A study in healthy home-living elderly

Del Corso L., Pastine F., Protti M. A. **, Romanelli A. M. **, Moruzzo D., Ruocco L. *, Pentimone F.

From the Sections of Geriatrics and of *Clinical Laboratory Analysis, Department of Internal Medicine, University of Pisa, Pisa, Italyand **National Research Council, Epidemiology and Biostatistics Unit, Pisa, Italy

Background. Blood con­cen­tra­tions of cop­per, ­zinc and mag­ne­sium ­were deter­mined in ­healthy eld­er­ly to ­assess wheth­er ­aging inter­feres ­with min­er­al and micro­nu­tri­ent stat­us.
Methods. Experimental ­design: ­case ­series. Setting: Internal Medicine and Geriatrics ambu­la­to­ries in a University Hospital in Pisa, a ­city of Central Italy. Participants: 143 ­healthy out­pa­tients of ­both sex­es, who under­went a car­di­o­log­i­cal exam­ina­tion. Intervention: no treat­ment and inter­ven­tion ­were per­formed. Measures: cop­per (Cu), ­zinc (Zn) and mag­ne­sium - ­both intra­eryth­ro­cyt­ic (iMg) and extra­cel­lu­lar (eMg) - ­were meas­ured.
Results. The con­cen­tra­tions of Cu and eMg ­were ­found sig­nif­i­cant­ly high­er in the eld­er­ly: Cu 117.5±17.0 μg/dl in the eld­er­ly vs 102.5±19.6 µg/dl in the young­er (p<0.001); eMg 1.8±0.2 in the eld­er­ly vs 1.7±0.2 mEq/l in the young­er (p<0.05). On the oth­er ­hand, the lev­els of Zn and iMg did not dif­fer in the two ­groups: Zn 113.3±14.9 μg/dl in the eld­er­ly vs 118.0±17.3 µg/dl in the young­er, p=n.s.; iMg 4.3±0.4 mEq/l in the eld­er­ly vs 4.2±0.4 mEq/l in the young­er, p=n.s. No cor­re­la­tion was ­found ­between age and sin­gle ele­ments.
Conclusions. These ­results sug­gest ­that ­the healthy ­free-liv­ing eld­er­ly ­have an ade­quate min­er­al ­intake. Nutrient sup­ple­men­ts may by use­ful in the eld­er­ly ­with chron­ic dis­eas­es, comor­bid­ities, and pol­y­phar­ma­cy to pre­vent fur­ther age dys­func­tions.