Do Your Own Zinc Level Test-Update
This update adds significant new details on the test procedure.
My earlier post on "Heart Disease and Copper" raised some concern on the use of copper and it's impact on zinc levels hence this post.
..."Zinc Talley." It's one of the easiest and most accurate ways to determine a zinc deficiency."...
You can make your own Zinc Tally test solution by mixing 2 grams of zinc sulfate 2 litres of distilled water and follow instruction outlined below. Making 2 litres of solution may seem a bit excessive but it makes a much more accurate solution when using kitchen weigh scales. Of course if you have access to more precise tools than by all means make a small quantity equivalent to 0.1% zinc sulfate solution... See below for the updated "Zinc-Tally" details.
Chris Gupta
"Zinc-Tally"
Test fluid consisting of a 0.1 % solution of zinc sulphate in distilled water. Can detect zinc deficiency in the body and may be used as a zinc supplement. It is used as a treatment for anorexia.
Description:
Zinc deficiency is difficult to detect in a laboratory since most of the body's zinc is found in the cells. Instead one can use a simple taste test with a zinc solution.
Gustin is a zinc dependent polypeptide, which is required for normal development of taste buds. Zinc Tally is one in several zinc solutions designed for testing zinc deficiency in the body. The product was accepted in the British 1988 Pharmacopoeia as a good way of testing one's zinc status.
The test fluid is made by titrating the right concentration. Make sure that the bottles are thoroughly disinfected - use an autoclave - since growth of bacteria will change the flavour.
The content is a 0.1% solution of zinc sulphate heptahydrate (ZnSo4 7 H20) in distilled water. This fluid has a zinc content of 15 mg. pr. 120 ml. - only this concentration is effective.
Tests on rats have shown that it heals wounds in a few hours, whereas weaker or stronger solutions were ineffective.
The Zink test
You must not eat, drink, or smoke less than one hour before the test. Then take the equivalent of a liqueur glass of the fluid and rinse your mouth with the fluid for 5-10 seconds, after which you can either swallow or spit it out. Four different flavours now appear:
- No flavour or "like water" = typical zinc deficiency
- No flavour to begin with, but later a reaction occurs described as either "dry", "fluffy","mineral", "like baking powder" or "sweet" = zinc deficiency
- A strong but not necessarily unpleasant flavour is registered immediately and builds up little by little = no zinc deficiency.
- An unpleasant flavour is registered immediately. The test person makes a wry face and wants to rinse his mouth with water = no zinc deficiency, good zinc status
You can take your zinc supplement in this way. It is also well-suited for anorectics. You should be able to taste the zink after 3 weeks, otherwise you should have your gastric acid concentration examined - it might be too low.
Zinc tablets can also be used as a supplement.
Notice!
In cases where the test person has amalgam fillings in the mouth disposing a fair amount of mercury, the zinc test may be less precise. The zinc liquid might cause a nasty, metallic taste in the mouth in spite of the zinc deficiency in the body.
Zinc supports the pineal gland in the brain, which secretes melatonin, allowing for deeper and more restorative sleep to help insulin work well. Adequate zinc also helps fight sugar cravings. Never exceed 100 mg. a day of zinc, and reassess your clients every month.
Last para extracted from CHEK Report Newsletter
ZINC TEST
To find out if you're low in zinc, ask your local health food store for a nutritional test called the "Zinc Talley." It's one of the easiest and most accurate ways to determine a zinc deficiency.
Take the following zinc questionnaire. If you answer yes to any of these questions, you may have some degree of zinc deficiency:
- Have you lost much of your sense of taste and smell?
- Do you have adult acne, even if you didn't have it as a teenager?
- Do you get frequent colds and flu, usually with an ear infection?
- Is your hair going prematurely gray? Does it grow slowly? Is your hair texture dry with brittle ends?
- Do your nails have white flecks? Do they peel and fray easily? Do they grow abnormally slowly?
- Do you have an enlarged prostate (BPH) or prostatitis?
- Is your skin dry and cracked? Do you get fungal skin infections? Do cuts or rashes heal slowly? Do you sunburn easily?
- Have you been diagnosed with macular degeneration? Are your eyes overly sensitive to sunlight?
- Does your body have trouble with sugar balance? Do you have diabetes or hypoglycemia?
- Do you have a history of low sperm counts? Have you ever suffered from impotence or erection problems?
- Do you get often get herpes-type mouth sores? Are your lips regularly dry, cracked or chapped?
See also:
..."SIGNS OF ZINC DEFICIENCY: One easily recognized sign of zinc deficiency is white spots, bands, and lines on finger nails. An occasional white spot is usually evidence that the immune system overcame a bacterial or some other systemic infection, and is a positive, not negative sign. Some women will have multiple parallel white bands or lines on their fingernails marking menstrual cycles in marginal zinc deficiency. According to some biomedical researchers, human zinc deficiency may be correctable only by a therapeutic intake of 100 to 150 mg zinc per day taken orally for a few months. Significantly exceeding 150 mg per day to correct serum zinc deficiency is rarely warranted, and often causes nausea and vomiting, and may have other deleterious effects on health, primarily through depletion of serum copper. Some researchers suggest adding trace amounts of copper and vitamin B-6 with supplemental therapeutic doses of zinc to help reestablish proper zinc serum levels."...
Extracted form:
WARNING! ZINC DEFICIENCY -- AS CAUSE OF MODERN ILLNESSES
posted by Chris Gupta on Sunday November 16 2003
updated on Saturday September 24 2005
URL of this article:
http://www.newmediaexplorer.org/chris/2003/11/16/do_your_own_zinc_level_testupdate.htm
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Readers' Comments
Dear Chris,
I do competitive swimming and get very little sleep and for a while i became dependent on zinc losanges to aviod/prevent and shorten colds...i probably easily went through 5 or 6 bags of cold eeze this year, sometimes taking a losange every night for weeks at a time...i wienned myself off of them afriad they were going to damage my sense of smell/taste or give me mouth cancer or something like that....
are any of these things true? Can high doses of zinc losanges have long/short term affects on your health?
the bag says ingriedents: "4.5 gram drop contains 13.3mg of ionic zinc from zincum gluconicum 2X {104mg zinc glutonate trihydrate} equivilent to zincum 3X
yet it also says on the box "recommended daily dosage 6 drops a day till symptons subside { 79.8mg zinc)" so im not really sure which mili gramage is correct...aka how much zinc is in each tablet...
i also have 2 or 3 cliff bars a day which have 20% daily value of zinc each
what do you think of all this? is the swallowed zinc ok, losange bad? are the rumors of side effects for zinc losanges such as cold eeze true??? Am i just getting way too much zinc?
thanks in advance!
Posted by: W A Bessant on November 8, 2003 12:39 PM
Thanks Bill, as a result I have extensively updated the orignal post.
Posted by: Chris Gupta on November 10, 2003 05:54 PM
Dear Chris,
I do competitive swimming and get very little sleep and for a while i became dependent on zinc losanges to aviod/prevent and shorten colds...i probably easily went through 5 or 6 bags of cold eeze this year, sometimes taking a losange every night for weeks at a time...i wienned myself off of them afriad they were going to damage my sense of smell/taste or give me mouth cancer or something like that....
are any of these things true? Can high doses of zinc losanges have long/short term affects on your health?
the bag says ingriedents: "4.5 gram drop contains 13.3mg of ionic zinc from zincum gluconicum 2X {104mg zinc glutonate trihydrate} equivilent to zincum 3X
yet it also says on the box "recommended daily dosage 6 drops a day till symptons subside { 79.8mg zinc)" so im not really sure which mili gramage is correct...aka how much zinc is in each tablet...
i also have 2 or 3 cliff bars a day which have 20% daily value of zinc each
what do you think of all this? is the swallowed zinc ok, losange bad? are the rumors of side effects for zinc losanges such as cold eeze true??? Am i just getting way too much zinc?
thanks in advance!
Posted by: Theresa Bailey on April 6, 2004 01:25 AM
Dear Chris,
I do competitive swimming and get very little sleep and for a while i became dependent on zinc losanges to aviod/prevent and shorten colds...i probably easily went through 5 or 6 bags of cold eeze this year, sometimes taking a losange every night for weeks at a time...i wienned myself off of them afriad they were going to damage my sense of smell/taste or give me mouth cancer or something like that....
are any of these things true? Can high doses of zinc losanges have long/short term affects on your health?
the bag says ingriedents: "4.5 gram drop contains 13.3mg of ionic zinc from zincum gluconicum 2X {104mg zinc glutonate trihydrate} equivilent to zincum 3X
yet it also says on the box "recommended daily dosage 6 drops a day till symptons subside { 79.8mg zinc)" so im not really sure which mili gramage is correct...aka how much zinc is in each tablet...
i also have 2 or 3 cliff bars a day which have 20% daily value of zinc each
what do you think of all this? is the swallowed zinc ok, losange bad? are the rumors of side effects for zinc losanges such as cold eeze true??? Am i just getting way too much zinc?
thanks in advance!
Posted by: Tea Rob on January 24, 2005 07:13 PM
Dear Chris,
I do competitive swimming and get very little sleep and for a while i became dependent on zinc losanges to aviod/prevent and shorten colds...i probably easily went through 5 or 6 bags of cold eeze this year, sometimes taking a losange every night for weeks at a time...i wienned myself off of them afriad they were going to damage my sense of smell/taste or give me mouth cancer or something like that....
are any of these things true? Can high doses of zinc losanges have long/short term affects on your health?
the bag says ingriedents: "4.5 gram drop contains 13.3mg of ionic zinc from zincum gluconicum 2X {104mg zinc glutonate trihydrate} equivilent to zincum 3X
yet it also says on the box "recommended daily dosage 6 drops a day till symptons subside { 79.8mg zinc)" so im not really sure which mili gramage is correct...aka how much zinc is in each tablet...
i also have 2 or 3 cliff bars a day which have 20% daily value of zinc each
what do you think of all this? is the swallowed zinc ok, losange bad? are the rumors of side effects for zinc losanges such as cold eeze true??? Am i just getting way too much zinc?
thanks in advance!
Posted by: Brian Riley on March 6, 2005 12:59 PM
Brain, I suspect only if specified.
Posted by: Chris Gupta on March 7, 2005 02:00 AM
Dear Chris,
I do competitive swimming and get very little sleep and for a while i became dependent on zinc losanges to aviod/prevent and shorten colds...i probably easily went through 5 or 6 bags of cold eeze this year, sometimes taking a losange every night for weeks at a time...i wienned myself off of them afriad they were going to damage my sense of smell/taste or give me mouth cancer or something like that....
are any of these things true? Can high doses of zinc losanges have long/short term affects on your health?
the bag says ingriedents: "4.5 gram drop contains 13.3mg of ionic zinc from zincum gluconicum 2X {104mg zinc glutonate trihydrate} equivilent to zincum 3X
yet it also says on the box "recommended daily dosage 6 drops a day till symptons subside { 79.8mg zinc)" so im not really sure which mili gramage is correct...aka how much zinc is in each tablet...
i also have 2 or 3 cliff bars a day which have 20% daily value of zinc each
what do you think of all this? is the swallowed zinc ok, losange bad? are the rumors of side effects for zinc losanges such as cold eeze true??? Am i just getting way too much zinc?
thanks in advance!
Posted by: Nick Stefan on April 5, 2005 03:15 AM
Dear Chris,
I do competitive swimming and get very little sleep and for a while i became dependent on zinc losanges to aviod/prevent and shorten colds...i probably easily went through 5 or 6 bags of cold eeze this year, sometimes taking a losange every night for weeks at a time...i wienned myself off of them afriad they were going to damage my sense of smell/taste or give me mouth cancer or something like that....
are any of these things true? Can high doses of zinc losanges have long/short term affects on your health?
the bag says ingriedents: "4.5 gram drop contains 13.3mg of ionic zinc from zincum gluconicum 2X {104mg zinc glutonate trihydrate} equivilent to zincum 3X
yet it also says on the box "recommended daily dosage 6 drops a day till symptons subside { 79.8mg zinc)" so im not really sure which mili gramage is correct...aka how much zinc is in each tablet...
i also have 2 or 3 cliff bars a day which have 20% daily value of zinc each
what do you think of all this? is the swallowed zinc ok, losange bad? are the rumors of side effects for zinc losanges such as cold eeze true??? Am i just getting way too much zinc?
thanks in advance!
Posted by: Louise Rush on March 5, 2007 09:33 AM
About 20 years ago I published a study in nursing home patients which showed that all patients who had a pressure ulser were also severly malnourished. I authored the federal guidelines for nutritional support in the prevention and treatment of pressure ulcers and recommended that if cutaneous signs of zinc deficiency were present the patient should be given 220mg of Zinc sulfate/day. Now I do a Zinc Tally test on all patients who have wounds. I have observed that all patients who have glossitis are positive (can not taste the zinc). I have also reciently shown that Zicam spray is equivalent to the Classic Zinc Tally. It is zinc acitate and glucinate mint flavored so zinc deficient patients taste sweet and minty water.
I am repeating this Zicam Tally test every 6 weeks. So far, no conversions from positive to negative. Some patients are on 220mg of Zinc sulfate for 4 mo now. Still, no conversions but their wounds are healing remarkably well.
Please comment on the above. I do not want to create zinc toxicity or a copper supression. If the Zicam Tally test remains positive I feel I should continue with 220mg/day. As you know, zinc is primarily an intracellular trace mineral so serum values have been shown to be unreliable vs the Zinc Tally test.
Addendum: Not having glossitis (which is indicitave of a variety of B Vit. deficiencies) dose not mean that you will pass your Zinc or Zicam Tally test.
Please dialogue with me on this subject. I can not find anyone who works with this population and is familiar with the oral and cutaneous signs of vitamine and trace mineral deficiencies.
Posted by: M.V.Kaminski, M.D. on October 18, 2008 08:28 PM
The information found here is all about ZINC DEFICIENCY. Can you give me information on ZINC TOXICITY?
Posted by: Naomi Babb on October 3, 2009 08:24 PM
Pl advise how I test for a surplus of zinc in my body.Is there an org in London UK that does this
Posted by: alex pomedroy on March 5, 2010 04:08 AM
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