Zinc Deficiency, Age, and Cancer

Sometimes findings from medical studies seem to make so much sense it is difficult to understand why anyone had to spent good money on an expensive study to find the simple solution to confounding problems. Such is the case of the nutrient zinc as it pertains to inflammatory responses within the body and cancer formation. Zinc has been found to be helpful in repairing damage to DNA which is very important because DNA damage has been linked to an increased risk of developing cancer.

The information we are discussing can be found in an article published in The Journal of Nutritional Biochemistry. The study found that supplementing the diet with zinc helps to control inflammation which is associated with cancer formation, heart disease, autoimmune diseases, and diabetes. An important aspect of this study is that it points to the importance of increasing dietary zinc supplementation as people age.

Findings from this study used laboratory animals to make determinations regarding the effects of aging on the absorption of zinc and the effects of age-related zinc deficiencies. In other words, as these laboratory animals aged their ability to assimilate zinc into their body was reduced to the point of zinc being found in deficient quantities below the levels necessary to keep DNA damage and cancer in check. This inability to absorb zinc into the body occurred even when sufficient amounts of zinc were supplied in the diet. It was necessary to increase the dietary requirement of zinc tenfold before anti-inflammatory markers were restored to levels normally found in younger animals. 

So, how big of a problem is zinc deficiency in people? Well, studies show that approximately 40 percent of elderly Americans are deficient in zinc, and this could be problematic for them. Why would this situation be problematic?

The answer is simple.

Elderly people exhibit a combination of not consuming an adequate amount of zinc in their daily diet with an impaired ability to absorb the zinc they do consume. This is essentially a double whammy leading to a serious zinc deficiency problem. It is a double whammy because more cellular and genetic damage is taking place due to aging while there is less zinc available to repair that damaged genetic material.

In the elderly this is significant because the amount of genetic damage is increasing while their ability to repair that damage is decreasing. This situation can lead to an increased risk of cancer as well as other degenerative diseases including arthritis, Alzheimer’s disease, and heart disease. Zinc deficiency has been implicated in all of these deleterious processes.

Having sufficient amounts of zinc in your body can aid immune function, wound healing, eye health, and prevention of cancer in addition to the inflammatory diseases listed above. However, taking more than 40 milligrams of zinc per day can cause problems so avoid taking more than this amount.