Zinc and Calcium together

[Brandy]

I went hunting some science on this topic and finally found: http://ajcn.nutrition.org/content/65/6/1803.abstract


As far as I can tell from actual academic papers, calcium decreases zinc absorption anywhere from 10-50% (depending on how measured and how much calcium and a bunch of other factors). The 50% case was extreme testing methodology and not seen in real life. Worst case eating nothing but dairy with a zinc supplement cuts its effectiveness probably somewhere like 10-20% decrease if you take zinc with a meal that has a non-trivial amount of dairy.

• Normal people require: 11 mg or less. (http://ods.od.nih.gov/factsheets/Zinc-HealthProfessional/)
• Centrum has 11 mg, many other dailies have 15 mg.
• VitaLady says 100 mg daily and schedules taking zinc and calcium together
• MBC says 50 mg every three days.
• ASMBS says 22 mg for Ds patients. (2 times normal.)

So, if you want to take zinc and calcium together then I would add a 25% buffer over your daily goal. So, the minimum is probably something like (22 * 1.25) = 27.5.

In general, I don't think the medical professionals are extremely careful about this. It seems like everybody warns about calcium and iron but very, very few warn about zinc and calcium. Any zinc warnings are a reminder to make sure that this mineral be monitored and supplements adjusted as needed.

Me? I got some weird acne on my face right now so I'm erring on the high side (50mg / day) but I'm having enough trouble with my vitamins that I'm not going to even try to get the zinc in separately from the calcium. Zinc toxicity is possible, but normal people are safe at 40 mg a day, so I doubt 50 mg is close to dangerous for us.

Good news! One less thing to worry about.

 

[Elizabeth N.]

The last time my zinc plummeted, it took 200 mg daily for quite some time, at least 6 weeks, to stabilize it. I now take 100 mg daily to maintain.

 

[Brandy]

I just found this scientific paper: http://asmbs.org/resources/integrated-health-nutritional-guidelines. It isn't a study, but a review of all the studies in this field. And it isn't too filled with jargon to make slogging threw it too painful. It feels good to have access to some data rather than the oversimplified contradicting recommendations of several equally respectable experts.

They say “[Zinc levels were] abnormally low in 51% of BPD/DS subjects at one year postoperatively and remained suboptimal among 50% of patients at four years postoperatively.” Although interestingly, they didn't boost their zinc recommendation above 2 multi-vitamins but instead upped the A and K vitamins in response to this. I don't understand why.

Have you noticed your copper level affected? Because they also said "Caution should be used when prescribing zinc supplements because copper depletion occurs when 50 mg zinc is given for a long period of time." Current research recommends 900 mcg for normals and 2 mg for bariatric patients. I know that VitaLady boosts her copper recommendations to 7 mg a day (2 multivitamins plus a separate 5 mg pill). She suggests taking the copper separate in the first batch with iron in the morning, which doesn't include any of the multi's, calcium, zinc, etc.


This is all so fascinating! How our bodies deal with everything is a miracle!

 

[DianaCox]

Zinc is cheap, Walgreens brand are relatively small, easy to swallow. I take 50 mg x 2/day, with my calcium Easy peasy.

 

[aaa]

I take a ton of zinc and copper (not together, of course). I had some bad side effects regarding low zinc about a year out (it was explained to me I'm pooping a ton more zinc that I did preop) and have had to supplement both ever since.

 

[Elizabeth N.]

My copper seems to stay stable on however much is in my 4 Kirkland multis a day.