Low Serum Zinc & Magnesium: A Possible Risk Factor for First Episode Simple Febile Seizures

Febrile seizures are the most common seizure disorder of children. They are seizures occurring in neurologically healthy infants between 6 months to 5 years without any CNS infection, metabolic disturbances or previous afebrile seizures. They have multiple etiological factors like genetic, environmental factors, family history, specific nutrient deficiencies like iron, zinc, magnesium, copper, selenium, GABA deficiencies. Zinc is an essential micronutrient necessary for normal brain function and in controlling the occurrence of febrile seizures. Zinc directly raises the threshold level of seizures. Magnesium an essential micronutrient, plays a role in stability of nerve and muscle cell. Hypomagnesemia leads to nerve and muscle cell excitability. In our study the relationship between low serum zinc & magnesium and first episode simple febrile seizures was taken as the objective. Case control study was conducted in our Institute of Social Pediatrics, 40 cases and 40 controls were included in the study. Cases were the children admitted with first episode simple febrile seizures, controls were age and sex matched children with acute febrile illness without seizures. Serum zinc & magnesium were estimated and statistical analysis performed with SPSS 16 version. Statistically significant low serum zinc & magnesium was found in the cases compared to the controls. Also febrile seizures was found to be common among the age group 1-2 years and slightly higher among the male children