Study Of Relations Between Serum Level Of Zinc And Recurrent Oral Ulcers And Taste

Background and Objective Recurrent oral ulcer(ROU) or recurrent aphthous ulcer(RAU) is an oral disease with a high incidence rate. Although it is self-limiting, the recrudescence and pain makes its patient great troubles in speaking and eating. The cause of RAU is still unknown and there isn’t a good way to control the recrudescence in clinical treatment.Zinc is one of the essential trace element. The reference between the zinc deficiency and the cause of RAU has long been studied, yet there is still no conclusion, more evidence need to be provided; Zinc complementary is considered a valid treatment of RAU, but not all the RAU patient has a situation of zinc deficiency, before the treatment, their serum zinc should be test first in order to decide whether they need zinc complementary; patient with RAU are more likely to refuse the way of serum zinc test because of its complex sequence, so we need to find a simple way to describe the situation of zinc deficiency for clinical treatment.Materials and methods From Jan to Apr in2012, collecting30patient with RAU for experimental group and21healthy adult for control group. Measure the serum levels of zinc by AAS and do a taste test for both group. Analysis the results with independent-sample t test by spss13.0,take P<0.05as significant result.Results1. According to independent-sample t test, the serum zinc level of experimental group is significantly lower than control group(P<0.05); Both groups shows that males have a higher level of serum zinc than females(P<0.05); patients with MiRAU have a lower level of serum zinc than patients with MaRAU(P<0.05).According to Pearson correlation test, serum levels of zinc has no relation with age(P<0.05).2. According to independent-sample t test, scores of taste test between experimental group and control group don’t have a significant difference(P>0.05); males have higher scores than females in each group(P<0.05); Pearson correlation test shows scores of taste test grows with age(P<0.05); serum zinc levels have no relation with taste scores(P>0.05).Conclusion1. The cause of RAU has a relationship with zinc deficiency.2. The serum zinc level of adult has no reference with age; Sex is influencing factors of serum zinc level, males have a higher level of serum zinc than females.3. Sex and age are influencing factors of taste, female and young age people appears to have more acute taste.4. There is no reference between taste and serum zinc level, it is considered impracticable to show people’s nutrition condition of zinc by taste test.