Assessment of zinc status in man

Conclusions The assessment of human zinc nutritional status has proven to be difficult and challenging task over the course of many years. Dietary and medical history and physical examination may all provide important clues. Of the many laboratory assays for measurement of tissue zinc concentration and functional indices of zinc status, plasma zinc, despite many limitations, remains the assay of choice. Utilization of stable isotope techniques to evaluate zinc homeostasis include measurement of absorption of exogenous zinc, excretion of endogenous zinc and estimation of the combined size of the pools of zinc that are readily available on a whole organism level. Such measurements are starting to yield useful new insights into zinc status. While this approach appears to offer the potential for significant progress on a research basis, it does not provide techniques that are readily applied on a large scale or under ‘field’ conditions. Carefully designed, randomized, placebo controlled supplementation trials are almost invariably required to delineate the clinical and metabolic effects of correcting putative deficiency states. In the case of zinc, these can serve the additional role of confirming the underlying zinc deficiency state.