did not reach statistical significancep = 0.0175
Although the zinc-mediated reduction in overall interstitial collagen area fraction (Masson’s trichrome) in the DM + ZnSO 4 group did not reach statistical significance, zinc treatment significantly suppressed the pathological Collagen I accumulation ( p = 0.0175) and Caspase-3-mediated apoptosis ( p = 0.0051).