Oral zinc therapy in patients with supposed mild zinc deficiency - a critical review

Summary

The importance of zinc in many processes of diseases remains unclear up today. Nevertheless many biochemical or clinical studies let support a high clinical relevance of trace elements especially zinc in the therapeutic concepts of diseases. Unfortunately the border between severe (or real) and mild (or subclinical) zinc deficiency is not clear defined. In addition methodical problems in determination of trace elements and misinterpretations of study results lead to unjustified assignment from several diseases in the group of zinc deficiency disorders. Another current problem is the consideration of bioavailability of oral commercial trace element products. Especially the regulation of zinc uptake in human under normal conditions and in case of zinc deficiency is not clear at this time. These problems let become tangled the actual literature for the clinical active physician at the field of zinc.

In this mini review there is given an overview about published clinical studies with oral zinc supplementation in the past years.

Orale Zinktherapie bei Patienten mit vermutetem subklinischem Zinkdefizit - ein kritischer Report

Die eigentliche Bedeutung des Spurenelementes Zink in vielen Krankheitsprozessen ist bis heute nicht geklärt. Unabhängig davon lassen viele biochemische sowie klinische Studien eine große therapeutische Relevanz der Spurenelemente in der Behandlung verschiedener Krankheitsbilder vermuten. Leider bestehen nach wie vor Probleme, einen milden Zinkmangel von einem schweren Zinkmangelzustand abzugrenzen und dessen Bedeutung einzuordnen. Insbesondere methodische Probleme und Fehlinterpretationen von Studienergebnissen führen dazu, dass bei vielen Erkrankungen Zinkmangelzustände als ursächlich angenommen werden. Ein weiteres ungelöstes Problem ist die Frage nach der Bioverfügbarkeit der kommerziell vorhandenen oralen Zinktherapeutika. Insbesondere wird dabei die Rolle der Zinkaufnahmeregulation unter normalen Bedingungen unterschätzt. Diese stehenden Probleme führen dazu, dass die vorhandenen Literaturdaten vor allen Dingen für den klinisch tätigen Arzt unübersichtlich werden.

In dieser Übersichtsarbeit werden eine Zusammenfassung der vorhandenen Datenlage und eine Wertung der Studienergebnisse für den praktisch tätigen Arzt gegeben.

Key words

Zinc - Oral Therapy - Review - Zinc Deficiency

Schlüsselwörter

Zink - Orale Therapie - Zinkdefizit

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