8 Weeks of 5mg/kg Zinc-Sulfate Fire Up Immune System of Turkish Wrestlers
Regular readers of this blog will have noticed that I am generally opposed to mega-dose supplementation with isolated nutrients and so I do not really know what to make of the results of a recent investigation ( Kara. 2011 ) into the effects of 5mg/kg bodyweight zinc -sulfate on cytokine response in 15–17 year-old male subjects. At the beginning of the study, there were no significant differences of the measured parameters between the four study groups. At the end of the study, the levels of TNF-α, IL-2, and IFN-γ were significantly higher in the two zinc-supplemented groups compared to those that did not receive supplementation, regardless of the activity status ( p < 0.01). Most interestingly, mega-dose (I do not really get, why the authors call 350mg zinc , which would be the dose for a 70kg subject still "physiological") zinc-sulfate supplementation elevated TNF-alpha, IL-2 and IFN-Gamma by >90% regardless of whethe...