Long term Zinc supplementation

[SwanRonson]

does anyone else get nausea

Here's the relevant part as to why you get the nausea:

"Zinc binds quickly to stomach tissue if taken on an empty stomach. If you take a zinc supplement on an empty stomach, it causes severe stomach pain and gastritis. It has been theorized that zinc ions are highly soluble in stomach acid and have corrosive, antimicrobial, and immune-stimulating properties that irritate the stomach tissue because of the direct absorption of the zinc ions."

 

[leela]

that's so helpful. thank you @SwanRonson.
luv yer username

 

[PeterPositive]

Apologies for not having read this whole thread, but does anyone else get nausea and diarrhea from zinc supplementation?
Maybe I started to too high at about 35-40mg ionic zinc liquid (as sulfate).
I have high copper already, and the supp does have a couple mgs of copper in it.

It doesn't seem to matter if I take it with or without food--still get the nausea.

Any suggestions?

When I started Zinc even a meager 5mg would hurt my stomach pretty badly
Not nausea, more burning like sensation. Going slowly and letting your body get used to supplements is always a good idea.

Starting high very often can result in bad side effects and then quickly ditching the supplement. I've done that many times before learning the low-and-slow approach. I am pretty impatient by nature

As @SwanRonson suggested try using multiple small doses. I typically don't take more than 15mg at once and always with food. Zinc is not easy on an empty stomach.

Also the suggestion about Zinc-Carnosine is a very good one. A couple of months of that can improve your stomach issues significantly (while you replenish yourself of zinc)-

Finally try playing with different forms of Zinc... you may find that you can tolerate some forms better than others. Zinc gluconate, zinc-methionine (opti-zinc), zinc picolinate etc... Zinc-carnosine is possibly the easiest one. The picolinate instead was pretty hard on my stomach, now I tolerate it.

Cheers

 

[adreno]

45mg of supplemental zinc might be a bit high in the long run, but I believe 15-30mg would be fine. The main problem with high zinc seems to be that it can lower copper (which you are already supplementing). Also, males need more zinc than females. AFAIK, every time a man ejaculates, he loses about 5mg of zinc. Zinc also keeps aromatase in check.

Intakes of 150–450 mg of zinc per day have been associated with such chronic effects as low copper status, altered iron function, reduced immune function, and reduced levels of high-density lipoproteins. Reductions in a copper-containing enzyme, a marker of copper status, have been reported with even moderately high zinc intakes of approximately 60 mg/day for up to 10 weeks. The doses of zinc used in the AREDS study (80 mg per day of zinc in the form of zinc oxide for 6.3 years, on average) have been associated with a significant increase in hospitalizations for genitourinary causes, raising the possibility that chronically high intakes of zinc adversely affect some aspects of urinary physiology.

http://ods.od.nih.gov/factsheets/Zinc-HealthProfessional/

 

[SwanRonson]

Also, males need more zinc than females. AFAIK, every time a man ejaculates, he loses about 5mg of zinc.

This guy says it's as high as 15mg of zinc lost per ejaculate. I don't have access to the study he cites though. Regardless, adding an extra 15mg of zinc on days of sexual activity for men is probably a good idea. And, based on the India studies that @Freddd has cited, extra mb12 is probably good for men as well on those days.

 

[Little Bluestem]

I have had nausea problems with zinc. I cannot take zinc oxide. I take 15 mg of zinc-methionine (opti-zinc) twice a day. To avoid problems I must:
1) be well hydrated
2) take the zinc with a full meal - protein, starch, and veggie and/or fruit. The meal can be small.
3) not take the zinc in the morning or at bedtime. (so lunch and supper)

 

[PeterPositive]

45mg of supplemental zinc might be a bit high in the long run, but I believe 15-30mg would be fine.

I thought the same, but via multiple experimentation I've found that:

~15mg don't seem to make any tangible difference (in terms of subjective physiological changes)
~30mg some minor changes, better mood and physical strength
~50mg clear improvement of mood and stamina and less prone to flu-like feeling, runny nose etc...

I have moderately elevated HPL (mauve factor / pyroluria) = 387 (range 15...250) so that might play a role too, although I haven't done any tests to asses if there's an elevated urinary excretion of Zn. I will explore this soon.

I am curious if anybody here, with pyroluria, has ever quantified their amount of urinary zinc excretion?

 

[SwanRonson]

I am curious if anybody here, with pyroluria, has ever quantified their amount of urinary zinc excretion?

I would love to know if this is possible as well. Is there such a thing as a urinary zinc test?

 

[SwanRonson]

Found it. Labcorp Urine Zinc test is here. Code is 003434.

 

[PeterPositive]

I would love to know if this is possible as well. Is there such a thing as a urinary zinc test?

There are urine metal tests such as this:
http://www.greatplainslaboratory.com/home/eng/metals_urine.asp

It's a pretty thorough test, that also involves a chelating agent to provoke the excretion of heavy metals... I was looking for something simpler

 

[PeterPositive]

Found it. Labcorp Urine Zinc test is here. Code is 003434.

ok, that was fast

 

[PeterPositive]

...But linky no worky...

 

[SwanRonson]

ok, that was fast

Honestly I'd love to know if Pyroluria is even a real thing or not. It sounds so much like "adrenal fatigue". People talk about "brain fog" and "fatigue" with adrenal fatigue and pyroluria. But I think they mean it in a much milder sense than most people here do. When I said "brain fog" before I got sick, I meant a minor annoyance of not being able to remember stuff. When I say it now I mean that sometimes I stare at the computer screen for 5 minutes in a blank fog and not know what I'm doing. It's actually a disability - not an annoyance.

 

[SwanRonson]

...But linky no worky...

It's working for me. Just go to the labcorp site and type in the code for it in the test menu search.

 

[aaron_c]

Swan: I appreciated the link on various zinc types.

Honestly I'd love to know if Pyroluria is even a real thing or not. It sounds so much like "adrenal fatigue".

Perhaps the difference is that the name "adrenal fatigue" suggests an etiology that may or may not be accurate, while pyroluria literally describes a positive test result (ie having high kryptopyrroles in one's urine). I think adrenal fatigue also exists, insofar as some people have low levels of cortisol at various times when it should be higher, or visa versa, and they do benefit from attempts to mitigate this.

But I also am not convinced that adrenal fatigue is quite as simple as it is usually presented. And I have also not heard a good explanation for why one would become pyroluric (which is not to say that the explanation is not out there...I just haven't seen it).

I suppose my experience with society and CFS has made me a little sensitive to this, but I think the difference between a disease with an unknown etiology and a disease with uncertain validity is large, and often vastly undervalued.

 

[jason30]

Be aware that Zinc inhibits Cortisol:
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/1702662

 

[PeterPositive]

Also, males need more zinc than females. AFAIK, every time a man ejaculates, he loses about 5mg of zinc.

I've read all sorts of figures about the amount of zinc in male semen.

According to this:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Semen#Composition_of_human_semen

it is a 1/10th of that, on average, which seems fairly negligible, but they are referring to 3.4ml of semen... which seems a bit low. It's like 1 1/2 teaspoon. I usually do better than that

 

[PeterPositive]

Be aware that Zinc inhibits Cortisol:
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/1702662

Interesting, thanks for posting.

 

[aaron_c]

Be aware that Zinc inhibits Cortisol:
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/1702662

Ah, so that is how zinc is supposed to help with sleep.

To confuse things even more: Zinc can also spike one's cortisol if one has too much copper in one's system. I know that Lawrence Wilson is the main spokesperson for this, and so many would be inclined to disregard it, but I have seen it in both my sister and mother; they had to increase zinc supplementation slowly to let their body get used to it, basically taking enough to only make the insomnia annoying, not debilitating. They compensate by taking phosphatidylserine, which helps sleep by decreasing cortisol.

I think zinc does all this by displacing copper from metallothionein. The copper then increases norepinephrine (I can't recall how at the moment) which in turn increases cortisol.