September 2004, Volume 10 No. 2

ARTICLE 8

Serum Vitamin E, C and A Status in Pre-Eclampsia and Eclampsia Patients, and Their Correlation with Blood
Pressure: a Study in Dhaka, Bangladesh

Sheikh Nazrul Islam¹, Touhida Ahsan², Shahla Khatun², Md Nazrul Islam Khan¹ & Monira Ahsan^3
1 Institute of Nutrition and Food Science, University of Dhaka, Dhaka-1000, Bangladesh
² Department of Gynaecology and Obstetrics, Bangabanddhu Sheikh Mujib Medical University, Dhaka-1000, Bangladesh
³ Department of Pharmaceutical Chemistry, University of Dhaka, Dhaka-1000, Bangladesh.

ABSTRACT
The aim of this study was to determine serum concentrations of vitamin E, C and A in pre-eclampsia and eclampsia patients, and to analyse their relationship with blood pressure. It was a cross-sectional case controlled study comprising forty-four pre-eclampsia, fifty eclampsia, and thirty-five normo-tensive pregnant women of singleton gestations in their third trimester from two hospitals in Dhaka, Bangladesh. HPLC and spectrophotometric methods were employed to determine the serum concentrations of vitamin E, A, and C. SPSS software package was used to analyse the data. Serum vitamin C was found to be significantly higher (F=6.266, p=0.003) in the pre-eclampsia group than in the pregnant control and eclampsia groups, while serum vitamin E and A in patients and control did not differ significantly. Vitamin C levels in the pre-eclampsia group were found to be influenced by their maternal age (F(2,41)=3.197, p=0.05), and found to be positively related to the maternal age (r =0.250 and p=0.106). In the pre-eclampsia group, vitamin E showed a positive significant relationship with systolic pressure (beta coefficient= 0.303, P=0.052, R2=0.101) and diastolic pressure (beta co-efficient=0.459, P=0.002, R2=0.211). In the eclampsia group, vitamin C showed a negative significant relationship with systolic blood pressure (beta co-efficient=-0.502, P=0.000, R2=0.302) but in the case of diastolic pressure, the relationship was reversed (beta co-efficient=0.443, P=0.001, R2=0.237).

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