Zinc is a metal. Zinc as a metal is not able to be absorbed by your body. Therefore most forms of zinc consumed for health reasons, are in the form of a salt. This is not the table salt that you put into your food for tasting purposes, sodium chloride. Thus, zinc combined with something else to be able to be soluble inside your body is really a zinc salt.
Zinc wasn’t so trendy before the Pandemic revealed how essential it is to stop viruses from proliferating. But zinc is a critical and a very essential trace element, especially for a healthy brain and healthy hormone functions.
Zinc wears many hats…
Zinc is integral to the synthesis of proteins, the regulation of signaling molecules like sex steroid hormones, gene transcription (messages to cells to tell them what to do), and even neurotransmitter signaling and transport (signaling molecules that affect mood to digestion).
Zinc is involved in DNA repair and synthesis. Zinc helps your body function and then helps your body repair from the offshoot and downstream “mess” of all that activity.
Zinc helps methylation. This gives the green light to many essential functions.
Zinc is especially critical to keep your brain on a ZEN balanced path.
Your brain is ruled by sex steroid hormone signals. But how do they signal? Hormones nestle on into binding domains. How? Binding domains have two atoms of zinc, referred to in science as “zinc fingers” that literally “pull” estrogen or testosterone or progesterone into the binding domain.
Once hormones squat inside binding domains and the entire hormone/receptor complex “shimmies or rotates” in space. This motion allows the hormone’s signal to be delivered to the gene inside the cell. This is how life unfolds. Especially in your brain. And both this hormone/receptor dance and delivery depend robustly on zinc.
That’s why I say you want a “sexy brain”. You want sex hormone signals as they help your brain cells function.
And your brain must have just the “right” Goldilocks amount of zinc to have zinc fingers to allow sex hormones to rule your brain just right!
Because sex steroid hormones need zinc for their binding domains. Non-sex steroid hormones, like oxytocin a transmembrane hormone, still requires zinc for the optimal “shape” to bind and signal genes… Thus, deficient and even insufficient zinc levels (especially inside red blood cells) sets the scene for hormonal imbalances. If you want healthy hormones you must have healthy zinc levels.
Zinc fights inflammation. Zinc inhibits the production of inflammatory cytokines (including nuclear factor-κB). Aging is now considered a duo-job of insufficient hormones plus excess inflammation. Zinc both acts as a powerful anti-inflammatory, reducing excessive pro-inflammatory cytokines. And a hormone booster. So zinc is essentially an anti-aging metal on "roids".
Zinc has general neuroprotective effects.
Zinc is involved in hippocampal neurogenesis and modulates the activity of the hypothalamic-pituitary axis.
Zinc fights depression. Too little zinc stores set the scene for vulnerability to depression. In a cross-sectional study of the relationship between dietary zinc intake and depressed mood, low serum zinc levels were strongly correlated with increased risk for depressed mood.
The lower the level the more severe the depression.
Zinc increases serotonin uptake in select brain regions which increases the efficacy of antidepressants. If you are on anti-depressants you may want to take extra zinc but taking extra zinc may help you get off the anti-depressants.
Preliminary evidence from randomized controlled studies supports the antidepressant efficacy of zinc supplementation used as an adjuvant to prescription anti-depressants.
Zinc fights oxidative damage, especially in the brain. Low brain zinc levels cause diffuse neuronal damage through the increased free radical formation and exacerbate N-methyl-d-aspartate (NMDA) excitotoxicity. You can actually measure NMDA in your blood and if it is too high, you may need to supplement with zinc.
Zinc inhibits NMDA receptors which reduces glutamate toxicity. Too much glutamate is linked to anxiety, depression, and even optic nerve disorders like glaucoma.
Zinc insufficiency sets the basis for poor immune response and higher vulnerability to recurrent infections, viral issues, and even cancers.
Zinc is involved in preserving "genomic stability" by the regulation of redox homeostasis (both oxidant and antioxidant signaling).
Zinc protects against cognitive decline because hormones protect the volume and plasticity of your brain. But sufficient zinc also reduces cognitive decline that may result from excessive levels of copper.
Zinc and copper do a “molecular dance” together. Too much of one depresses the other. And Goldilocks “just right” amounts of each other preserve and protect each other. That is why when you take zinc as a nutraceutical for specific reasons, from 15 to 90 mg a day in divided dosages at the higher levels, you want to take a few mg of copper in a multi just to keep the “molecular peace”.
You can run zinc red blood cell analyses and ideally most minerals should be in the higher quartile.
Zinc deficiency is common. In the US and around the world. Your body generally needs about 10 – 20 mg of zinc per day because it can’t store zinc. The optimal amount is about 11 mg/day. But if you have zinc insufficiencies and are trying to “heal” a specific issue, from depression to hormonal imbalances to a viral infection, you might need up to 90 mg (30 mg TID) for a therapeutic period of time.
How to get your Zinc?
Oysters have the highest levels of zinc.
Beef, pork, and chicken provide smaller amounts of zinc per serving. It’s also present in eggs, yogurt, and cheese.
Hemp seeds are the highest plant food, seed form, of zinc. Next are pumpkin seeds, pine nuts, cashews, pecans, and flax seeds.
Avocados, blackberries, pomegranates, and raspberries provide 2 to 12% of the daily value of zinc per cup.
There is 1.3 mg of zinc in each avocado. If we are healthy and not zinc deficient, again you want 10 to 20 mg/day to give you a perspective. Read your multi-label, if it says 5 to 8 mg of zinc, this will be as a salt. So you are getting less than the total salt amount (see below) but this is added to what you get in foods.
Zinc, like most minerals in supplements, is combined with carrier salts. So the total amount of mineral plus carrier salt is not the amount of zinc that you are getting. This is often unappreciated by many people as well even nutritionists or doctors.
Whether or not minerals, like zinc, are bioavailable (usable by your body) depends on many factors from your own digestive robustness to what else you eat. For example, a diet high in grains, nuts, and legumes may be high in phytates, which can bind up zinc. Thus, vegans and vegetarians may be vulnerable to zinc insufficiencies.
The percent of zinc in each of these zinc/carrier molecular combos is as follows. All these are zinc salts which are in this form to be soluble and thus able to be used by your body:
Zinc Ascorbate 15% so if this complex says on the label 100 mg of zinc ascorbate you really are getting 15 mg of zinc.
Zinc Bisglycinate 25%
Zinc Carbonate 52%
Zinc Citrate 31%
Zinc Chloride 48%
Zinc Sulphate 22%
Zinc Picolinate 20%
So if you’re using a Zinc Picolinate 50 mg tablet, your body may only get about 20% of that zinc for use by your cells. And this is if you digest optimally and do not have maldigestion/malabsorption issues (which many ill and aging folks are prone to).
Suggestions of insufficient zinc:
Stinky feet
Wounds that easily leave prolonged scarring
Depression
Lack of response to HRT
Anxiety
Brain fog
Recurrent Infections
Hair loss
Prone to non-responsive diarrhea
Ophthalmic disorders
Hypogonadism
Be zinc replete to be neat.
Dr. B.
References
· Integrative Mental Health Care: A Therapist's Handbook https://www.amazon.com/Integr.../dp/0393705366/ref=sr_1_1...
· Sexy Brain Awakened Medicine Press Berkson DL
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· Zinc Deficiency and Zinc Therapy Efficacy with Reduction of Serum Free Copper in Alzheimer's Disease International Journal of Alzheimer’s Disease. 2013; 2013: 586365. (
· Ingredients of a 2,000-y-old medicine revealed by chemical, mineralogical, and botanical investigations Proceedings of the Natural Academy of Sciences of the United States of America vol. 110 no. 4 > Gianna Giachi, 1193–1196
· Zinc status and serum testosterone levels of healthy adults. Nutrition. 1996 May;12(5):344-8.
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· Nutrition Key to Aggressive Behavior USC News news.usc.edu November 16, 2004 retrieved September 21, 2017 (
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· Effect of zinc supplementation on mood states in young women: a pilot study. European Journal of Clinical Nutrition. 2010 Mar;64(3):331-3.
· Zinc monotherapy increases serum brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF) levels and decreases depressive symptoms in overweight or obese subjects: a double-blind, randomized, placebo-controlled trial. Nutritional Neuroscience. 2015 May;18(4):162-8
· Diagnosis and management of attention-deficit/ hyperactivity disorder in children. Current Opinion in Pediatrics. 2001 Apr; 13(2):190-9. (
· Double-blind, placebo-controlled study of zinc sulfate in the treatment of attention deficit hyperactivity disorder. Progress in Neuro-psychopharmacology & Biological Psychiatry. 2004 Jan;28(1):181-90.
· [The role of zinc in the treatment of hyperactivity disorder in children]. In Croatian Acta Medica Croatica. 2009 Oct;63(4):307-13.
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· Analysis of Copper and Zinc Plasma Concentration and the Efficacy of Zinc Therapy in Individuals with Asperger’s Syndrome, Pervasive Developmental Disorder Not Otherwise Specified (PDD-NOS) and Autism Biomarker Insights. 2011; 6: 127–133.