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Assessment of Marginal Zinc Status in Humans^{1 ,2}

Mineral Bioavailability Laboratory, U.S. Department of Agriculture Human Nutrition Research Center on Aging at Tufts University, Boston, MA 02111

The assessment of marginal zinc status is problematic. Currently, there is no universally accepted single measure to assess zinc status in humans. The development of a reliable measure of marginal or moderate zinc status would be useful for a variety of purposes. For example, a simple, yet sensitive and accurate measure of zinc nutritional status is critically needed to further our limited understanding of the possible associations between zinc status and the risk of developing various chronic diseases and in predicting favorable health outcomes in patient populations. A convenient and reliable zinc assessment tool is needed to identify subpopulations who are at a risk of zinc deficiency and as an objective guidepost to determine the need for initiation of zinc supplementation or zinc fortification of the food supply, as well in the refinement of recommendations of dietary zinc allowances. In frank zinc deficiency, clinical signs and static measures of zinc concentrations in a variety of readily available tissues, such as plasma, various blood cell types and hair, may uniformly confirm the presence of depleted body zinc stores. However, in general, the relative insensitivity or imprecision of these measurements has resulted in general disappointment in their use to assess marginal zinc status. Therefore, the search continues to find a useful and reliable marker of marginal zinc deficiency. In an attempt to speculate on possible future developments in the zinc status assessment field, a number of new and potentially promising approaches to this problem are highlighted.

KEY WORDS: • zinc status • metallothionein • zinc-dependent enzymes • differential mRNA display • yeast genetics

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