Zinc plays an important role in cell-mediated immune function. Altered cellular immune response resulting from zinc deficiency leads to frequent microbial infections, thymic atrophy, decreased natural killer activity, decreased thymic hormone activity, and altered cytokine production. In this study, we examined the effect of zinc deficiency on IL-2 and IFN-gamma in HUT-78 (Th0) and D1.1 (Th1) c...

OBJECTIVE To assess stunting and zinc deficiency among primary school children in north rural area of Jiangsu Province with low soil zinc concentrations, eastern part of China. METHODS Two data collection rounds were conducted. In the first data collection round, 2268 primary school children aged 6-9 years were included by cluster sampling from three counties with low soil zinc concentrations...

Elucidation of the pathogenesis and effective treatment of autism spectrum disorders is one of the challenges today. In this study, we examine hair zinc concentrations for 1,967 children with autistic disorders (1,553 males and 414 females), and show considerable association with zinc deficiency. Histogram of hair zinc concentration was non-symmetric with tailing in lower range, and 584 subject...

Rhesus monkeys were fed a diet marginally deficient in zinc (4 ppm zinc) throughout pregnancy and were monitored for changes in hematological, biochemical, and immunological parameters. This dietary zinc level was chosen because it did not produce an overt deficiency syndrome when fed for 10 wk to nonpregnant monkeys. Deprived animals were compared to control groups fed a zinc replete (100 ppm)...

To explore the relationship between dietary zinc and the natural history of Moloney sarcoma virus (MSV) oncogenesis, BALB/c mice were fed diets which contained four levels of zinc: 100 ppm zinc (designated control); 9 ppm zinc (desig nated marginal deficiency); 5 ppm zinc (designated moderate deficiency); and 2.5 ppm zinc (designated severe deficiency). Moreover, because zinc deficiency is asso...

Zinc is an essential nutrient because of its role in catalysis and in protein stabilization, but excess zinc is deleterious. We distinguished four nutritional zinc states in the alga Chlamydomonas reinhardtii: toxic, replete, deficient, and limited. Growth is inhibited in zinc-limited and zinc-toxic cells relative to zinc-replete cells, whereas zinc deficiency is visually asymptomatic but disti...

Zinc is an essential trace element for human health and is a critical component of many proteins and transcription factors involved in DNA damage response and repair. The prostate is known to accumulate high levels of zinc, but levels are markedly decreased with cancer development. We hypothesized that zinc plays a critical role in maintaining DNA integrity in the prostate and zinc deficiency w...

Acrodermatitis enteropathica which is a manifestation of zinc deficiency, is rarely seen in breast-fed infants. A child with typical acral rash, zinc deficiency and low breast milk zinc levels is described. The importance of awareness of this entity in breast-fed infants along with differential diagnosis is being emphasized.

Although the essentiality of zinc for plants and animals has been known for many decades, the essentiality of zinc for humans was recognized only 40 years ago in the Middle East. The zinc-deficient patients had severe immune dysfunctions, inasmuch as they died of intercurrent infections by the time they were 25 years of age. In our studies in an experimental human model of zinc deficiency, we d...

BACKGROUND There are different and controversial reports about zinc deficiency in patients with major thalassemia. OBJECTIVES The aim of this study was to evaluate zinc status in patients with major thalassemia in Sistan and Baluchistan province, southeastern Iran. PATIENTS AND METHODS The study was performed in Ali Asghar Hospital, a specialized governmental hospital located in Zahedan, Ir...