Dr. Mark Gordon on zinc: what the evidence says · JRE #2262
SUBJECT: ZINC
Not a true/false call. Every claim is logged with its sources; read the exhibits below.
don't put a lot of zinc in because zinc's involved in about 300 processes in the body. It's antiviral that we just talked about. It's anti-alzheimer's because it turns out that the production of the chemical called beta amyloid, there's an enzyme that regulates it and it's zinc dependent.
What the evidence says 01 / RECORD
The figure is well supported: zinc is required for the catalytic, structural, or regulatory activity of more than 300 enzymes across all six enzyme classes, and the NIH Office of Dietary Supplements describes zinc as required for the catalytic activity of hundreds of enzymes. The Alzheimer's link is also grounded in real biochemistry: the principal alpha-secretase, ADAM10, is a zinc-dependent metalloprotease that cleaves the amyloid precursor protein within the beta amyloid sequence, thereby precluding generation of the neurotoxic Abeta peptide. However, calling zinc simply anti-Alzheimer's oversimplifies the science, because zinc dyshomeostasis is implicated in Alzheimer's disease in both directions and zinc ions can also directly promote Abeta aggregation, so the net effect is not a clean protective one. Overall the two factual anchors (about 300 processes, and a zinc-dependent enzyme in the amyloid pathway) are accurate, while the causal framing is looser than the evidence supports.