Abstract :
Introduction: Diabetes mellitus, the most common chronic metabolic disorder affecting about 300 million
people all over the world. It occurs due to impaired insulin secretion, impaired insulin action or both
whereas Prediabetes is the initial stage before diabetes mellitus and characterized by impaired fasting
glucose or impaired glucose tolerance. Type 2 diabetes mellitus is associated with increased metabolic
processes and oxidative stress. The trace elements are important co-factor in these events. Thus, this study
was conducted to compare serum copper, zinc in prediabetes, diabetics with normal controls.
Materials and Methods: Institutional ethics committee permission was obtained prior to the study. Study
included 71 prediabetes, 71 diabetics subjects and 71 controls between 40-60 years. Serum fasting blood
sugar, glycated hemoglobin, copper, zinc was estimated. Statistical analysis was done using student t-test
and Pearson’s correlation. p value Results: Serum copper was significantly increased in diabetic (77.87 40.78) and serum zinc
(128.05 20.87) was significantly decreased in diabetics compared to apparently healthy controls. (Copper
=60.72 19.70, zinc =140.74 33.99), where as in prediabetics both copper and zinc level were increased
compared to healthy subjects. Serum copper was positively correlated with Glycated hemoglobin (r=0.26,
p= Glycated hemoglobin (r= - 0.182, p=0.008) and fasting blood sugar (r= - 0.188, p=0.006). Copper to zinc
ratio also showed statistically significant positive correlation with Glycated hemoglobin (r=0.287, p= )
Conclusion: Serum copper and zinc have a role in diabetes thus supplementation of micronutrients may be
essential to maintain the diabetic status.
Keyword :
Diabetes mellitus, Zinc, Copper, Copper to zinc ratio.