Zinc and Immune Function The Importance of Zinc for Health

The crucial significance of zinc for human growth and development has gradually emerged over the last three decades. Investigations of human nutritional status have shown that zinc is not as freely available as the ubiquitous distribution of this trace element might suggest. Furthermore a number of clinical studies have revealed that the effects of even a moderate degree of zinc deficiency may be profound. Zinc was initially found to be an essential element for the growth of plants and animals more than 100 years ago when scientists were seeking to discover the basic requirements for growth, and deliberately reduced or eliminated zinc from the food of plants, microbes, and animals. In all cases growth was radically reduced, and in some experiments the effects were lethal. Although these studies attracted much attention for their basic significance, it was assumed that implications for human health were minimal, since zinc was thought to be widely available in nature. However, in the 1960’s, this view suddenly changed, when human zinc deficiency was reported for the first time and a new field opened up. As often happens in science, there was a synchronicity and a convergence among discoveries that included the appearance of a new science called “immunology ” at the same time that evolving studies in the ancient science of nutrition were illuminating the essential relationship between poor nutritio