Knowledge about measuring trace elements for children

There are trace elements in everyone's body, and these trace elements affect our health to some extent. Many hospitals now recommend measuring trace elements in children. Some parents don't quite understand but they follow the doctor's advice and take their children to do trace element testing. Some parents are more sensitive when they see various abnormalities in their children's bodies and think that these abnormalities may be caused by the lack of certain trace elements in the children's bodies. Is it really necessary to measure trace elements in children? Do trace elements really affect children’s health?

My baby is over one year old now. He drinks less milk and starts to eat more family meals. Mother Liu was worried that her child was malnourished, so she took her baby to a nearby community hospital for health care. The doctor took the initiative to recommend the trace element testing service to her.

The doctor recommended that the baby undergo blood lead and five trace element tests. And the test also has a frequency. It can be done once every three months or once every six months. Although Mother Liu took her baby to do a finger blood test, she did not understand how important trace elements are to children.

Ms. Liu is not the only one who has encountered such a situation. At present, there is chaos in the detection of trace elements in children in the country. A parent once complained to the media that his 3-year-old son was in kindergarten. However, parents saw in the kindergarten’s notice that in addition to paying the daycare fee, they also had to pay a medical examination fee. After asking the teacher, he learned that the physical examination includes trace element testing.

Detection method:

Intermediary companies involved in children's trace element testing

In fact, children's trace element testing is an examination item that parents can choose voluntarily. However, in some community hospitals or township hospitals, parents are often charged for testing without their knowledge. Moreover, during the testing process, some intermediary companies are involved throughout the process. Some of them first sign a formal or informal "cooperation agreement" with certain tertiary hospitals and then use this as a signboard, while others sign contracts directly with community hospitals. Subsequently, their employees participated in the entire process of issuing prescriptions from community hospitals, guiding diagnosis and treatment, and even "drawing blood", taking the blood samples away for testing, and issuing test results.

Not only that, the investigation also found that the non-disclosure of examination fees and the confusion in examination departments were also problems. After calling several community hospitals, second-class A hospitals, and third-class A hospitals, the response I got was that if children want to undergo trace element testing, they can go to the pediatric department, health department, physical examination department... to register, and the test results will be available in 3 to 5 days. The test fees are not convenient to disclose.

A doctor told reporters that individuals rarely go to the hospital for trace element testing. This is because most companies and schools now directly "contract" physical examinations. In most cases, they just go to schools or companies to have their blood drawn. A Grade A hospital charges 39 yuan for five trace element tests (zinc, copper, iron, calcium, and magnesium), and 60 yuan for lead testing.

Primary hospitals often use fingertip blood and hair sampling methods to test for trace elements. Hair testing can save people from pain, but the content of trace elements in hair is affected by many factors such as hair cleanliness, hair quality, individual growth and development, and environmental pollution, and cannot well reflect the trace element status of children. Most hospitals now only have fingertip blood tests, and the blood samples are sent out. As to where they are sent, it is inconvenient to disclose. If you want a more accurate test, you can go to the pediatric department of some tertiary hospitals for a venous blood test.

The content of trace elements in the human body is very small

So, what exactly are trace elements? Zhang Jinzhe, one of the founders of pediatric surgery in China and an academician of the Chinese Academy of Engineering, said that the human body is composed of more than 80 elements, which can be divided into two categories: major elements and trace elements according to their different content in the human body. Any elements that account for more than one ten-thousandth of the total human body weight, such as carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, nitrogen, etc., are called major elements; any elements that account for less than one ten-thousandth of the total human body weight, such as iron, zinc, copper, manganese, chromium, selenium, etc., are called trace elements. The content of trace elements in the human body is very small. For example, zinc only accounts for 33% of the total body weight, and iron only 60%. Although trace elements are not present in large quantities in the human body, they are closely related to human survival and health. Excessive, insufficient, unbalanced or deficient intake of trace elements will cause physiological abnormalities or diseases in the human body to varying degrees. At present, it is relatively clear that about 30% of diseases are directly caused by trace element deficiency or imbalance. For example, zinc deficiency can cause redness, swelling, and eczema of the mouth, eyes, anus, or vulva, while iron deficiency can cause iron deficiency anemia. There have also been reports from abroad that a reduction in the total amount of iron, copper and zinc in the body can reduce immunity. In addition, trace elements also play a very important role in disease resistance and cancer prevention.

Zhang Jinzhe said that medically speaking, the human body contains more than 70 trace elements, but the ones that the general public is most concerned about are iron and zinc. If anemia, malnutrition, or other serious illness is found, the doctor will recommend this examination. The people who pay attention to trace elements are the parents of children in childcare institutions and the educators and childcare staff.

Children's trace elements can be tested or not

Zhang Jinzhe emphasized that there is no need for children to undergo trace element testing because there will be no trace element deficiency under the current living standards. As the name suggests, trace elements are essential to the human body, but only in trace amounts. No matter how old the child is, as long as they can eat normally, there is no question of deficiency. The main trace elements in children's bodies are iron, zinc and copper. The normal values ​​are: Iron: 60-170ug/dl, Zinc: 80-140ug/dl, Copper: 70-150ug/dl. These are the normal values ​​provided in textbooks. Each hospital will have different reference values ​​depending on the experimental methods provided by the laboratory. Generally, if you go to a regular hospital for trace element testing, you will get about 6 or 7 kinds of trace elements tested, and such test results are credible.

Many parents now have a misunderstanding. They like to test their children's trace elements at every turn. After the test results come out, parents who find their children "qualified" are very happy, while parents who find their children "unqualified" become anxious and nervous, and give their children "crazy supplements" based on the test results.

In fact, in the normal process of children's health care, parents generally do not need to take their children for trace element testing unless the child shows obvious clinical symptoms such as weight loss and picky eating. Trace element testing should not be a routine physical examination item. Parents should just pay attention to properly matching their children's diet. If you want to know whether your child's nutrition is balanced, in fact, a hemoglobin test during a health check-up is enough. Hemoglobin can show whether the child is anemic, and anemia is a symptom that children may currently experience.

Parents are advised to think twice before testing their children's trace elements, because as long as the children have a normal diet and are healthy, there is no need to take the children for trace element testing. Trace elements will not have much impact, and you only need to focus on providing children with dietary supplements in daily life.