The Symptoms and Pathogenesis of Zinc Deficiency

摘要

It is well known that zinc is an essential trace element for maintaining human health. However, there is a paucity of literature describing cases of zinc deficiency, leading many physicians to believe that zinc deficiency is a rare occurrence. Nevertheless, we have found many zinc-deficient patients at our Kitamimaki-onsen clinic since 2002, and reported their symptoms at the annual meeting of this BRTE society held in 2005. Their complaints were anorexia, general fatigue, impaired sense of taste, burning mouth, various types of skin lesion, delayed wound healing, emotional instability, and others. Each of these wide ranging complaints can be induced by zinc depletion, though they do not necessarily manifest themselves simultaneously. The reasons why such a wide range of symptoms appear in cases of zinc deficiency are becoming more apparent, due to recent studies advancing our knowledge on the functions of zinc-related proteins such as zinc transporters and zincrelated metaloenzymes. In this paper, we offer possible explanations on the relationship between zinc depletion and the onset of the abovenoted symptoms, and discuss the limitations of using serum zinc levels to detect and diagnose zinc deficiency.