Serum Zinc Level Is Associated with Frailty in Chronic Liver Diseases

• Main Authors: Hiroki Nishikawa, Kazunori Yoh, Hirayuki Enomoto, Yoshinori Iwata, Yoshiyuki Sakai, Kyohei Kishino, Yoshihiro Shimono, Naoto Ikeda, Tomoyuki Takashima, Nobuhiro Aizawa, Ryo Takata, Kunihiro Hasegawa, Takashi Koriyama, Yukihisa Yuri, Takashi Nishimura, Shuhei Nishiguchi, Hiroko Iijima
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: MDPI AG 2020-05-01
• Series: Journal of Clinical Medicine
• Subjects: frailty; chronic liver disease; zinc; correlation
• Online Access: https://www.mdpi.com/2077-0383/9/5/1570

We sought to examine the serum zinc (Zn) level and frailty in patients with chronic liver diseases (CLDs, <i>n</i> = 285, 107 liver cirrhosis cases, median age = 66 years). Frailty was defined as a clinical syndrome in which three or more of the following criteria were met (frailty score 3, 4, or 5): unintentional body weight loss, self-reported exhaustion, muscle weakness (grip strength: <26 kg in men and <18 kg in women), slow walking speed (<1.0 m/s), and low physical activity. Robust (frailty score 0), prefrail (frailty score 1 or 2), and frailty were found in 90 (31.6%), 157 (55.1%), and 38 (13.3%), respectively. The median serum Zn levels in patients with frailty, prefrailty, and robust were 59.7 μg/dL, 72.8 μg/dL, and 76.9 μg/dL, respectively (<i>p</i>-values: frailty vs. prefrail, <i>p</i> < 0.0001; prefrail vs. robust, <i>p</i> = 0.0063; frailty vs. robust, <i>p</i> < 0.0001; overall <i>p</i> < 0.0001). For all cases, variables with absolute values of correlation coefficient with frailty score (0–5) ≥ 0.3 were age (<i>r_s</i> = 0.3570, <i>p</i> < 0.0001), serum albumin (<i>r_s</i> = −0.3212, <i>p</i> < 0.0001), extracellular water to total body water ratio using bioimpedance analysis (<i>r_s</i> = 0.4386, <i>p</i> < 0.0001), and serum Zn level (<i>r_s</i> = −0.3406, <i>p</i> < 0.0001). In conclusion, decreased serum Zn level in patients with CLDs can be closely associated with the presence of frailty.