Zinc supplementation improves the outcome of chronic hepatitis C and liver cirrh

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J Clin Biochem Nutr. 2009 Nov;45(3):292-303. Epub 2009 Oct 28.

Zinc supplementation improves the outcome of chronic hepatitis C and liver

cirrhosis.

Matsuoka S, Matsumura H, Nakamura H, Oshiro S, Arakawa Y, Hayashi J, Sekine N,

Nirei K, Yamagami H, Ogawa M, Nakajima N, Amaki S, Tanaka N, Moriyama M.

Division of Gastroenterology and Hepatology, Department of Medicine, Nihon

University School of Medicine, 30-1, oyaguchi kamimachi, Itabashiku, Tokyo

173-8610, Japan.

We treated patients with C-viral chronic hepatitis (CH) and liver cirrhosis (LC)

with polaprezinc and determined prospectively the effect on long-term outcome.

62 patients were enrolled. Of these, 32 were administered 1.0 g polaprezinc and

the remainder were not administered polaprezinc. We measured the serum zinc

concentrations using conventional atomic absorption spectrometry and conducted a

prospective study to determine the long-term outcome of the polaprezinc therapy.

Changes of aspartate aminotransferase (AST) and alanine aminotransferase (ALT)

levels in the polaprezinc administration group were significantly lower than

those of the untreated group. The decrease in platelet count was clearly less

than that of the untreated group. The factors that inhibited increases in serum

zinc concentrations following administration of polaprezinc included low serum

zinc concentration states. Furthermore, the reductions of AST and ALT levels in

the low zinc group were significantly greater than those of the high zinc group.

When the patients who were administered polaprezinc were divided into two groups

whose zinc concentrations increased (zinc responders) or remained stable or

decreased (zinc non-responders), the zinc responders had a clearly lower

cumulative incidence of HCC than the zinc non-responders. We conclude zinc

supplementation improved the long-term outcome in C-viral CH and LC patients.

PMID: 19902019