Zinc essays

Zinc essentiality was established in 1869 for plants, in 1934 for experimental animals and in 1961 for humans. [ 1] A syndrome of anemia, hypogonadism and dwarfism was reported in a 21-year-old Iranian farmer in 1961 who was subsisting on a diet of unrefined flat bread, potatoes, and milk. [ 2]

This article has been cited by other articles in PMC. Since its first discovery in an Iranian male in 1961, zinc deficiency in humans is now known to be an important malnutrition problem world-wide. It is more prevalent in areas of high cereal and low animal food consumption.

Zinc absorption is concentration dependent and increases with increasing dietary zinc up to a maximum rate. [ 6, 8] In addition, zinc status may influence zinc absorption. Zinc-deprived humans absorb this element with increased efficiency, whereas humans on a high-zinc diet show a reduced efficiency of absorption. [ 9]

Received 2012 Sep 10; Revised 2013 Jan 17; Accepted 2013 Jan 28. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 Unported, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.