The Essential Toxin: Impact of Zinc on Human Health

By L. Plum, L. Rink, H. Haase. International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, 2010

1,533 citations recorded by the source corpus.

Compared to several other metal ions with similar chemical properties, zinc is relatively harmless. Only exposure to high doses has toxic effects, making acute zinc intoxication a rare event. In addition to acute intoxication, long-term, high-dose zinc supplementation interferes with the uptake of copper. Hence, many of its toxic effects are in fact due to copper deficiency. While systemic homeostasis and efficient regulatory mechanisms on the cellular level generally prevent the uptake of cytotoxic doses of exogenous zinc, endogenous zinc plays a significant role in cytotoxic events in single cells. Here, zinc influences apoptosis by acting on several molecular regulators of programmed cell death, including caspases and proteins from the Bcl and Bax families. One organ where zinc is prominently involved in cell death is the brain, and cytotoxicity in consequence of ischemia or trauma involves the accumulation of free zinc. Rather than being a toxic metal ion, zinc is an essential trace element. Whereas intoxication by excessive exposure is rare, zinc deficiency is widespread and has a detrimental impact on growth, neuronal development, and immunity, and in severe cases its consequences are lethal. Zinc deficiency caused by malnutrition and foods with low bioavailability, aging, certain diseases, or deregulated homeostasis is a far more common risk to human health than intoxication.

Subfields: Health, Toxicology and Mutagenesis, Nutrition and Dietetics, Plant Science

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/d9af18b044efad3dc26d5bc1400ba8b6a5fb45b3

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Citations in the corpus

Heavy metals (As, Cr, Pb, Cd and Ni) concentrations in rice (Oryza sativa) from Iran and associated risk assessment: a systematic review (2017, background): “Heavy metals can cause various diseases, in fact, an excess of Zn induces pH lowering and so an oxygen absorption’s decreasing coupled to increasing of heart rate (Plum et al. 2010) while, Cd causes the Itai–Itai disease characterized by skeletal pain (Nogawa et al. 2017).”
Zinc and human health: an update (2011, positive): “Furthermore, Zn is involved in immune responses, in oxidative stress, in apoptosis, and in aging (Stefanidou et al. 2006; Murakami and Hirano 2008; Prasad 2009; Plum et al. 2010).”
The Role of Metallothionein in Oxidative Stress (2013, background): “Originally, the mere perception of zinc(II) as a structural component and an integral component of cytoskeletal structures significantly expanded, and these ions are considered as an important signaling component necessary for the physiological function of all cells [37–40].”
Microbes used as a tool for bioremediation of heavy metal from the environment (2020, background): “Zinc is one of the major metals that can be found in effluents discharged from industries (Plum et al., 2010).”
Antioxidant and anti-inflammatory effects of zinc. Zinc-dependent NF-κB signaling (2017, background): “In addition, the reported zinc intoxications are rare and related primarily to copper deficiency (Plum et al. 2010; Młyniec et al. 2015a; Merza et al. 2015).”
Zinc in Infection and Inflammation (2017, background): “Moreover, it has been observed that both zinc deficiency and supplementation induced apoptosis in the same cellular model [48].”
Recovery of Zn (II), Mn (II), Cd (II) and Ni (II) from the unsorted spent batteries using solvent extraction, electrodeposition and precipitation methods (2017, background): “A long exposure to this metal causes bronchiolar leukocytes (Plum et al., 2010).”