Chapter 5

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SummaryResearch conducted during the past 10 15 years suggests that zinc defi-ciency is widespread and affects the health and well-being of populationsworldwide. The objective of this Chapter is to quantify the regional andglobal magnitude, distribution and disease burden implications of conducted a systematic literature search to identify relevant studiesinvestigating the role of zinc in human health. This search indicated thatevidence on the burden of disease related to zinc deficiency would belimited to the results of randomized controlled trials (RCTs) conductedamong paediatric populations in developing countries, and wouldprovide information on whether zinc deficiency affects the incidence ofdiarrhoea, pneumonia and malaria illness among children aged 0 4years.

lation, as obtained from the WISTAT database (WISTAT 1994). To cal-culate the estimated percentage of the population with inadequate zinc intake, they assumed that the mean intake of food was equal to mean

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