It is well recognised that zinc deficiency is a major global public health issue, particularly in young children in low-income countries with diarrhoea and environmental enteropathy. Zinc supplementation is regarded as a powerful tool to correct zinc deficiency as well as to treat a variety of physiologic and pathologic conditions. However, the dose and frequency of its use as well as the choic...

OBJECTIVE Zinc deficiency is widespread, and preventive supplementation may have benefits in young children. Effects for children over 5 years of age, and effects when coadministered with other micronutrients are uncertain. These are obstacles to scale-up. This review seeks to determine if preventive supplementation reduces mortality and morbidity for children aged 6 months to 12 years. DESIG...

Theoretically, zinc can exert a number of indirect antioxidant functions. Researchers at our laboratory have found evidence to support this concept by studying mild zinc deficiency in rats. This state produces low resistance to chemically induced liver oxidant injury, and it produces high vulnerability of lipoproteins to oxidation. We are building on this work in rats to test a hypothesis in hu...

OBJECTIVE To evaluate whether zinc supplementation during pregnancy is associated with an increase in birth weight. DESIGN A randomized double-blind placebo-controlled trial. SETTING Outpatient clinic and delivery service at the University of Alabama at Birmingham. PATIENTS Five hundred eighty medically indigent but otherwise healthy African-American pregnant women with plasma zinc levels...

Chaperones and zinc are indispensable for proper immune function. All the zinc status, the immune function and the stress response decline during aging. Here we studied the effect of nutritional zinc and zinc homeostasis on the stress response in healthy old subjects recruited during the ZincAge European Union project that either underwent or not a 48-day zinc supplementation. Inducible Hsp70 l...

background: zinc is an essential trace element required for the functional activity of several enzyme systems. several studies have been carried out to assess the effect of zinc supplementation on children’s growth, but controversy exists as to the effect of zinc on growth and gh-igf-i system. objective:  the aim of this study was to evaluate the effect of zinc supplementation on linear growth ...

BACKGROUND It is uncertain to what extent oral supplementation with zinc can reduce episodes of malaria in endemic areas. Protection may depend on other nutrients. We measured the effect of supplementation with zinc and other nutrients on malaria rates. METHODS AND FINDINGS In a 2×2 factorial trial, 612 rural Tanzanian children aged 6-60 months in an area with intense malaria transmission and...

Introduction Zinc is a vital micronutrient in humans and its deficiency in children can thwart their growth and development, compromise their immunity and cognitive function. However, there is a paucity of studies about the effect of zinc supplementation on cognitive functions. This study is an attempt to quantify the impact of zinc supplementation on cognitive performance of schoolchildren. Ma...

BACKGROUND The efficacy of micronutrient supplementation in improving childhood health and survival in developing countries may be specific to the micronutrient used and health outcome measured. OBJECTIVE We evaluated the effect of vitamin A and zinc supplementation on overall rates of childhood diarrheal disease and respiratory tract infections and rates stratified by household and personal ...