Low levels of zinc in hair and blood, pica, anorexia, and poor growth in Chinese preschool children.

Zinc concentrations in plasma and hair were measured in 703 children, aged between 1 and 6 yr, and correlated with parameters of physical development. In the first group of 187 children brought to the Child Health Clinic for routine observation there was a positive correlation of hair zinc content and height for age, with an increased prevalence of low hair zinc content in children of shorter stature. A second group of 303 children in nurseries and kindergartens in Beijing exhibited a hair zinc content of 92 micrograms/g, and 34% of these had very low zinc values below 70 micrograms/g. The third group consisted of 213 children who were brought into the outpatient clinic for a variety of complaints, including pica, anorexia, and poor growth; these had significantly lower values of zinc in hair and plasma than well-nourished children and responded to zinc supplementation with improvement of growth and the disappearance of pica and anorexia. These results suggest that the diet consumed by the population studied may be marginal or inadequate in its content of available zinc.