Failure to diagnose and treat a nutrient deficiency can prolong illness and delay healing after surgery, no matter how competent treatment is in every other aspect. This adds to costs of medicine, in both the misery and the expense. For example: Dr. Thomas Sedlacek of the University of Pennsylvania found that zinc supplements shortened hospital stays by two thirds in women after gynecological surgery and wound breakdown occurred 4 times less. The savings in hospital medical bills was $4000 per patient in 1976 dollars. That could make an enormous difference in our present crisis in health care.
Zinc supplementation has been found helpful in a large number of illnesses. In general healing is accelerated and resistance to infection enhanced. Dr. Pories and Henzel found the rate of healing tripled after zinc supplementation. This aspect of zinc power applies to every illness where there is inflammation and tissue damage. If the diagnosis includes "itis" the treatment should include zinc! Arthritis, gastritis, pneumonitis, prostatitis, dermatitis, etc.
Atherosclerosis, with arterial plaque and blockage of peripheral vessels, improves after zinc supplements. Dr. Henzel observed improvement in leg cramps and ability to walk longer distances despite no increase in circulation! Apparently zinc improves the tissue vitality and metabolism. Some of this zinc power is due to the partnership between zinc and vitamin A, wherein zinc activates manufacture of RBP (retinol binding protein), required to carry vitamin A (retinol) from storage in the liver to the tissues of the body. This combination of zinc and vitamin A has been found effective in treating acne even in cases where separately they fail. A study by Dr. Gerd Michaelsson in Sweden found an almost 90 percent clearing of acne pimples in patients treated with both vitamin A and zinc. A placebo group showed only 25 percent clearing and vitamin A by itself was only a little better.
Zinc is directly anti-viral and anti-bacterial. Zinc lozenges shorten the duration of the common cold by two thirds, from 11 days to 4, a beneficial affect at least double that of vitamin C!
Zinc deficiency is a prime cause of abnormal fetal development and birth defects, including joined fingers and toes, scoliosis, hydrocephalus, low IQ and immune deficiency. One of the most alarming observations in the field of nutrition-medicine is that immune deficiency in offspring of zinc deficient pregnancies continue to bear immune deficient offspring for two additional generations—even if the diet is corrected to be adequate in zinc. The implications of this study in rats are quite frightening if it holds for humans!
Alcohol greatly increases zinc losses and also interferes with utilization of the vitamin, folic acid. These combination
deficiencies can cause full-blown
fetal alcohol
syndrome,
with
deformities
and mental
retardation.
It is
encouraging
that zinc-
treated
children
often
increase in mental acuity and score higher on IQ tests.
Acrodermatitis enteropathica is a genetic impairment of zinc absorption. It can produce fatal skin damage and diarrhea in newborns, a syndrome called. Until Dr. Edmund Moynahan thought of testing for mineral deficiency in 1976, these children were treated with an antiprotozoal drug, Diodoquin, which was of some benefit but at risk of optic atrophy and blindness.
Another hereditary disorder, porphyria, causes loss of both zinc and vitamin B6, which are wasted in the urine along with porphyrins, fragments of blood pigments with which they are complexed. Environmental pollution by lead and mercury interferes with the enzymes that convert these fragments into the heme (of hemoglobin). Instead these fragments pile up and must be excreted in the bile and urine—but they carry zinc and B6 out, depleting them. Since both zinc and B6 are active in nerve regulation, it is logical to find that when extra amounts of porphyrins appear the patients are likely to have mood swings, depression, alcoholism and schizophrenia. Aggressive supplementation with zinc and B6 often yields significant improvement.