Zinc, are you consuming enough Zinc for an Enhanced Athlete ?

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Zinc, are you consuming enough Zinc for an Enhanced Athlete ?
 
Back in the late 1990’s when Ronnie Coleman was receiving medical and nutritional consultation from BALCO Laboratories one of the things they discovered via Blooodwork was that Ronnie was depleted in zinc and magnesium.
 
Bodybuilder ” use” more Zinc than Citizen Joe does..
 
One of the core messages that I try to communicate is the understanding that when it comes to Nutritional recommendations like RDA, as ” athletes” and then further as ” enhanced athletes” we are often, more often than not going to need ” more” cause quite bluntly we ” use more”… nutrients.
 
We need more Protein, more quality Fats, more quality Carbohydrates… more than ” Citizen Joe”.. more
 
Hopefully ( please, please tell me it’s true ) everyone reading this understands that the RDA for Protein at 0.8gm/kg is just ” not enough” .. that we just need “more” than that.
 
The truth is most guys today have a reasonable handle on their Macro-nutrient needs, and yet are oblivious to the logical rational extension of that..
 
ie if that is true surely it makes sense that we need more Micronutrients as well, right ?
 
and we do, these micro-nutrients ” do stuff”
 
They are co-factors in all manner of important biological functions that we leverage and if we have the volume ” turned up to 10″ as we do when enhanced well we need more of them.
 
Hopefully it’s not very hard to imagine this being true without having to present a single shred of evidence to support that, of course, we can if we need to, but hopefully its an “acceptable truth”.
 
Today I want to talk about the mineral Zinc.
 
Zinc is a trace mineral involved in literally 1000’s of biological interactions including Endocrine Hormonal Modulation.
 
Re Testosterone Zinc deficiency is correlated with a large reduction of androgen receptors and the actual synthesis of testosterone.
 
Re DHT, Zinc is an effective 5α-reductase Inhibitor
 
Re Estrogen, Zinc increases expression of Estrogen Receptors
 
Re Growth Factors – IGF-1 and IGFBP3 are significantly reduced in individuals with below adequate levels of Zinc
 
In the process of Sex Hormone binding Zinc ( and several other minerals including Magnesium ) are ” consumed” at the receptor levels.
 
Takeway ?
 
We have a clear need for “more” Zinc than RDA
 
Dosage Recommendations ?
 
The RDA values for zinc is about 6.5mgs for females and 12mgs for males.
 
Superloading zinc by taking up to 100mg zinc a day is confirmed to be safe in the short term (2-4 months), but because this dose is higher than the 40mg – 50mg Tolerable Upper Limit (TUL) of zinc, prolonged superloading is not advised.
 
So… our recommendation becomes 40 – 50mg a day
 
And you might have trouble getting that from real food, maybe.. its possible but maybe your short.. supplements are for making up shortfalls, not for baseline intakes.
 
Real food first…
 
Bio-availabilty
 
Zinc’s intestinal uptake is hindered by other minerals, including Calcium, Magnesium, and Iron, since they all use the same transporter. If the transporter’s uptake limit (800mg) is exceeding between these four minerals, absorption rates will fall. Taking less than 800mg of these four minerals at the same time is fine.
 
Different forms of zinc contain different amounts of elemental zinc, which refers to the weight of the zinc molecule by itself.
 
Zinc citrate is approximately 34 percent zinc by weight. For a dose of 50mg elemental zinc, take 146 mg zinc citrate.
 
Zinc sulfate is approximately 22 percent zinc by weight. For a dose of 50mg elemental zinc, take 220 mg zinc sulfate.
 
Zinc gluconate is approximately 13 percent zinc by weight. For a dose of 50mg elemental zinc, take 385 mg zinc gluconate.
 
Zinc monomethionine is approximately 21 percent zinc by weight. For a dose of 50mg elemental zinc, take 238 mg zinc monomethionine.
 
Frequency of Administration
 
Zinc should be supplemented daily, timing I would recommend PM before Bed
 
Victor Black

References 

  1. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/6361778
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