Zinc, copper, and manganese in immune function and experimental oncogenesis
1982
Beach, Richard S. | Gershwin, M. Eric | Hurley, Lucille S.
Extract: A review is presented which attempts to place experimental data in perspective to nutrition issues, and to emphasize the need for further investigation in this critical area of human nutrition. Dietary deficiency of trace metals among human populations, once thought to be exceedingly rare, has recently gained attention as a potential public health problem. The consumption of highly refined and heavily processed foods reduces the trace element content of the diet. The higher trace element requirements of pregnancy, lactation, growth, development, and chronic disease may further contribute to states of marginal trace metal nurtriture. Experimental animal studies have demonstrated that even marginal trace element deprivation during critical periods of growth and development (or, alternately, during prolonged deficiency in adults) can significantly alter immunologic function. Trace metal nutriture also has been shown to affect initiation and progression of a large variety of neoplasia. Studies of the interaction of trace metal nutriture and cancer have suffered from many methodological inconsistencies as well as failures to define and quantitate the trace element content of diets and the host alterations in response to neoplastic challenge. Similarly, there has been little information in the critical area of marginal and moderate trace metal deficiency (i.e., those experimental situations most analogous to deficiencies that may occur in human populations). (author/wz)
显示更多 [+] 显示较少 [-]