Trace element concentration in hair of Bangladesh children under normal and malnutrition conditions

The trace element concentrations of eight elements (Ca, Cr, Mn, Fe, Ni, Cu, Zn and Pb) in the scalp hair of 49 normal and 55 malnourished children of the Bangladesh population, in the age group of 1 to 5 years were analyzed by the external beam PIXE method to establish their baseline values in normal children for pre-diagnostic screening of deficiency and excess in malnutrition. The results of this investigation show that the ranges of trace elements in hair are somewhat wide. For example, the normal Zn level has the range of 63-377 mu g.g(-1) for 49 subjects. The reasons for these large individual deviations are unknown till now. The average of the elemental concentrations between normal and malnourished groups are compared (t-test, p < 0.05). A correlation study has been done on each pair of original data by a non-parametric Spearman's rank test. The frequency distributions of the elements are presented and the results are compared with the data reported in the literature. A substantive correspondence between the present data hi hair of both the study groups and the literature values from different countries have been observed but they did not show any regular dependence on the nutritional status of the subjects. Only the low Cu content in the hair of malnourished group can possibly be linked with nutritional disorders as evidenced from this study.