Investigation of the effect of zinc on hemoreological parameters in thallasemia patients

Purpose: The aim of this study was to investigate the effect of zinc on hemorheological parameters and enzyme activities in TM patients. Materials and methods: Twenty eight TM patients and thirty healthy volunteers (HV) were included in this study. Venous blood samples were analyzed before and after the zinc incubation. We measured erythrocyte deformability, aggregation and osmotic deformability including enzyme activities. Data obtained from measurements before incubation were considered as initial and compared between groups also investigated TM and HV groups separately. Results: In some shear stresses (SS), initial EI of TM patients were significantly lower than HV group. After incubation, EI at some SS, were found significantly increased in both groups. Initial AMP were found significantly higher in TM patients than HV group, other erythrocyte aggregation parameters were not found significantly. After incubation, the AI of HV group was found significantly decreased and the t½ was found increased, whereas the AMP of TM patients were found significantly decreased. Initial Omin, Omax and Ohyper of TM patients were found significantly lower than HV group. After incubation, no significant difference was observed in osmotic deformability parameters of HV group. However, there was a significant decrease in EImax, Area and Omax of TM patients. GPx, CAT, SOD and MDA enzyme activities also examined. But data showed that zinc had no significant effect on enzyme activities of both groups. Conclusion: Our study showed that TM patients erythrocytes is associated with erythrocyte rheological disorders can be expressed by decreased erythrocyte deformability and osmotic deformability and increased erythrocyte aggregation compared to HV erythrocytes. After incubation; erythrocyte deformability was significantly increased while erythrocyte aggregation was significantly decreased in both groups. We think that this positive effect of zinc on erythrocytes can be used in favor of patients.