ZANZIBAR CITY, Tanzania, March 19 Daily zinc supplements -- known to maintain a healthy immune system -- cut the risk of death among Zanzibari children by 18 percent, a trial found.The double-blind trial involved 42,546 children living in Zanzibar, part of Tanzania, with half of the children receiving daily zinc supplements and the other half placebo.The study, published in The Lancet, found a 7-percent reduction in the risk of mortality with zinc supplementation -- which was not a meaningful finding -- and a meaningful discovery of an 18-percent reduction in mortality in children 12 to 48 months.However, researchers at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health in Baltimore did not find any real reduction in mortality among children 1 to 11 months of age.Senior author Dr. Robert Black of the Bloomberg School's department of international health said it may be possible that infants acquire sufficient amounts of zinc in utero and through breast feeding to sustain them for their first 12 months.Copyright 2007 by UPI
