American Journal of Food Science and Health Vol. 2, No. 4, 2016, pp. 78-81 http://www.aiscience.org/journal/ajfsh ISSN: 2381-7216 (Print); ISSN: 2381-7224 (Online) * Corresponding author E-mail address: husnimzory@yahoo.com (M. A. Ibrahim) Serum Levels of Zinc and Copper Elements in Children Diagnosed with Intestinal Parasitic Infection in Hive Hospital, Duhok City / Kurdistan Region in Iraq Mhommed Adnan Ibrahim * , Husni Abdulla Mhammad, Qays Lazgin Barany College of Science, University of Duhok, Duhok, Iraq Abstract Zinc and copper are vital elements for growth, reproduction and development which are components of some cellular enzyme and play an important role in the stabilizing of some cellular membrane. The aim of this study was to investigate the association between intestinal parasites and serum levels of zinc and copper in children of Duhok City/Kurdistan Region in Iraq, because despite the significant recent advances in the knowledge of the molecular biology and biochemistry of E. histolytica little is known about the pathogenesis of Entamoebasis and there relation with these two elements in Duhok City. The study started from 12/2014 to 8/2015. In this study a total of 15 infested and 31 non-infested persons as a control group were selected from total 44 samples. Stool samples were collected from all cases and controls and examined for detection of cyst and/ or trophozoite of Entamoeba and Giardia from each patient with 5 ml blood sample was obtained for estimation of zinc and copper. In this study, serum zinc levels in infected children were significantly lower when compared with healthy children, it was found a decrease level in serum zinc in 50% of cyst and/ or trophozoite of Entamoeba positive group, but copper level showed no statistical significant difference in comparison with healthy children. It has been concluded that intestinal parasites affect the level of serum zinc in testes children during present study. Keywords Zinc, Copper, Intestinal Parasites and Children Received: May 31, 2016 / Accepted: June 15, 2016 / Published online: July 27, 2016 @ 2016 The Authors. Published by American Institute of Science. This Open Access article is under the CC BY license. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ 1. Introduction Intestinal parasites are one of the major public health problems which are wide prevalence among children under 10 years of age. These parasites drainages the mucosal portion of the intestinal surface and disturbs the natural food absorption barrier in the gut. In severe cases it produces steatorrhea and malabsorption, growth retardation and may also affect the mineral absorption with many other physical and mental health problems in children (Kim., et al 2003). In 2002, WHO, found that the number infected people with digestive tract parasites at 3.5 billion and the number by is expected to be 450 million (WHO, (2002). Zinc and copper are essential for normal human development and functioning of body. Zinc is an essential trace element, an important antioxidant (Russo and deVito 2011) in spite of not being a free radical scavenger, and a metalloenzyme required for the catalytic activity of more than 300 enzymes (Prasad, 2012). It plays a necessary role in immune system which helps in the production of antibodies, T-cell and other blood cell activity, protein synthesis, cell replication, cell division, tissue repair and growth through (Prasad, 1995),