What is Zinc?
Zinc is an essential mineral and antioxidant that has a role in several of the body's most important functions, from cell formation to testosterone levels. It is an essential part of your body’s defense against oxidative stress. Zinc is required for a healthy immune system, healthy skin, strong bones, wound healing, recovery after exercise, and healthy aging.
Even minor deficiencies can result in frequent coughs and colds. It is involved in the expression of genes and is therefore especially important in growth stages, such as pregnancy, lactation, and in childhood.
Why test zinc?
Unless this is ordered as a retest or for a specific reason, we recommend ordering this as part of a health test.
Health Check
Discover your risk factors for lifestyle diseases in time to do something about them.
Monitoring
To monitor low or insufficient zinc levels, particularly if often sick, wounds heal slowly, or you experience slow recovery after exertion.
Dietary Factors
Most bioavailable zinc is found in animal foods. Alcohol depletes zinc and blocks absorption. Vegetarians, vegans, those avoiding red meat/seafood, and heavy drinkers may be low in zinc.
60+
Zinc is very important for healthy aging, especially for immune system function after age 60.
Symptoms
You have symptoms of zinc deficiency, including diarrhea, impaired wound healing, acne, eczema, dermatitis, mouth ulcers, impaired growth in children, or low testosterone.
Health History
You suffer regular coughs, colds, or other illnesses, have dry skin that marks easily, or suffer from a chronic illness that affects zinc levels (e.g., malabsorption syndrome, GI disease, liver disease, diabetes, anorexia nervosa).
Pregnancy, fertility, and breastfeeding
Zinc improves fertility in both sexes, increasing sperm production in men.
Athletes
Low zinc levels can lower resilience, reduce performance, and impair muscle development.
Medications
You take a drug, such as hydrocortisone or prednisone, which increases the need for zinc.
What causes low zinc?
Low zinc may indicate a zinc deficiency, although the body lowers zinc in response to infection, so results should be interpreted with clinical symptoms and history.
Since zinc is bound to albumin, albumin results can be useful alongside zinc. Low zinc with normal albumin can suggest zinc deficiency. If both zinc and albumin are low, this suggests an acute phase response to infection rather than a zinc deficiency. If you are deficient in zinc, you either don’t get enough zinc from your diet, or you don’t absorb it properly. Zinc deficiency can take a long time to show up on a blood test.
What causes high zinc?
High levels are uncommon because excess zinc is excreted from the body via urine and feces. High levels are most often due to excessive supplementation, industrial exposure, or exposure to household products that contain zinc (e.g paint, varnish, and cleaning products).
More information
There is no perfect test for zinc deficiency. Serum (plasma) zinc is the only test that is routinely available. Serum testing is not very specific for slight deficiency, meaning that someone may have a normal zinc level even if they are deficient.
Instructions
The day before
Fasting for 10 (but preferably 12) hours is recommended because zinc concentrations may decrease after eating meals.
The day before
Remember to take ID with you when going to take a test.