The Influence of Zinc Sulfate Supplementation on the Growth of School Age Children in Villages Around Shiraz 2002, 2003

In order to study the influence of zinc sulfate supplementation in height and weight growth and upper arm span increase of school age children, a research has been done on 60 school age boys between 6-12 years old in two village east of Shiraz. In this research, they were divided into two groups of 30 people. In the first group, 8 mg of zinc sulfate and in the second one, placebo was prescribed. Then, their height, weight and upper-arm span were measured and registered every 2 months and for 6 months. The amount of height growth of zinc sulfate receptive group was 4.25 cm comparing to 3.39 cm of placebo group (p = 0.04). Upper-arm span increase was 3.42 cm in the control group and 2.2 cm in the experiment group (p = 0.03). Weight increase in two groups did not have any significant difference. This study demonstrates adding zinc sulfate to school age boys, diet has had useful impacts in increasing the speed of growth.