Effect of Furosemide and Spironolactone on urinary zinc excretion in rats

Abstract

Background: Zinc deficiency is associated with numerous diseases including hypertension, diabetes, obesity, immune dysregulation, cancer, depression and congenital anomalies. There are many reasons of zinc deficiency including some medications. If zinc supplementation is used with these medicines than many diseases can be prevented. Subjects and methods: This experimental study was planned to observe the effect of single diuretic dose of furosemide and spironolactone on zinc urinary excretion and blood levels in normal rats. Eighteen adult healthy male Sprague Dawley rats were randomly divided into three groups. After saline load rats were given distilled water, furosemide (10 mg/kg) and spironolactone (20 mg/kg) as single oral dose. Blood and urine samples were collected after five hours and analysed for zinc concentration by flame atomic absorption spectrophotometer. Results: Single oral dose of furosemide and spironolactone highly significantly increased urinary zinc excretion (p-value <0.001 vs normal control), and increased blood zinc level (p-value <0.001 vs. normal control). Value of both variables were significantly higher in furosemide-treated group (p-value <0.001 vs. furosemide-treated). Conclusion: Results of this research conclude that furosemide and spironolactone increase urinary zinc excretion when used for short period. It is also postulated that blood zinc concentration is not reliable measure to assess the zinc status of the body because its level shows compensatory rise during deficiency states.